Of Loving Giants
by NightMary
Summary: The memories of a childhood spent with a teen boy who was her version of Launcelot still haunt a thoroughly modern woman. Even as she grows older, she’s still in love with him. When it comes down to it, can she keep her heart in check? /A Jugg. Fic/
1. He Doesn't Look A Thing Like Jesus

**Chapter 1- He Doesn't Look A Thing Like Jesus...(Re- Revised)**

Warning: This story contains: Bad Language, & Violence.

**Author's Note:** This story is dedicated to all of those chumps like me who are a mite obsessed with the ghosts from the movie "Thir13en Ghosts"- I created this out of an annoyance with the lack of stories revolving around one of my favorite ghosts (The Juggernaut, A.K.A, "The Breaker", A.K.A, Horace Mahoney)

--_**M. R. Q  
**_

* * *

Let's just say that as a kid in elementary school, I spent alot of time coloring. And not a whole lot socializing. I was always _the_ lonely kid- but if you knew the whole story you might not blame me.

For about as long as I can remember, my parents have always seemed to hate each other I was constantly stuck on the sidelines during almost every fight.

It always felt like some twisted professional sport I was witnessing- and whether I liked it or not, I was the appointed referee. They had one thing right, I suppose; I was, for the most part, unbiased, since I loved both of them.

I often spent nights when they would fight curled up under my bed or I would just break out of the house and I would just start running and running and running anywhere and everywhere around town. It was no wonder that I was such a skinny kid, looking back, for all of the running I did during those years.

That night things escalated, as they so often did. I don't remember really what started the fight, but a prominent memory I had of the night was of my mother yelling, "You like your things, you sonofabitch?! Well, you can have them!" as she proceeded to start throwing everything that was my father's all over the house.

Everything about the fight is blurry to me, as well as how long I ran for once I made a break outside. I just remember finally reaching a big, rusting fence. It took me a moment to register what lI could remember as what laid beyond the fence. It was the local junked car lot.

I was immediately turned off of the place out of fear.

Everybody in town knew about the two-person Mahoney clan that resided within. The adults in town spoke more of the slimy working policies the owner himself indulged in- but it was the children who turned the lot into a place of nightmares and mystery with rumors about the teen boy who lived within.

I had never seen this person everybody talked about, but i had heard plenty, and to me that was more than enough. He was hunch-backed. I had heard that he looked like one of the unrealistically robust villains on Saturday morning cartoons than an actual, real-life person. I had heard that he and his group of red-eyed dog/beasts hunted stranded motorists at night.

Even standing on the same side of the street of the lot was supposed to bring on the wrath of the monster boy who lived there.

I was not an adventurous child. The closest I would get to actually doing anything what I would consider crazy were those runs I had during fights. It was ironic that out of everything that was so normal about me, the only thing I ever did that really wasn't "normal" was what would lead me to the lot.

I had not thought of the fact that it was incredibly dark outside back when I had only thought of running out of the house, away from the noise. It was then, standing as frightened as I was near one of the gateways into the lot, that I had the realization that it was probably midnight.

As if to add to my growing list of reasons to be frightened, I remembered the one thing that my school's administrators had been warning us about.

About a week ago, a small boy had been found dumped in a field about a mile away from town. He had disappeared from the local playground- which, incidentally, was not that many blocks away from the dump lot. I, who had been going to the playground every once in awhile for a long time, alone with the possible exception of one of my aunts who would later cut my family off later on sometimes. At times, when I had run really late at night, I would even camp there when I was too frightened to make a dash back to the house.

But the situation back then provided itself with a big problem for me. Not only was I all the way across town and stranded- which was a normal enough situation for me- but I was too frightened to go hide in my only other place that I could sleep at that night.

What was I to do?

I reached a decision that came close to amounting to suicide in my eyes.

I was a skinny enough as a child (one of the many differences between me then and me now), so all I had to do to gain entrance to through the chained gate was to slide between the small empty space under the chain that kept the gate closed.

I had thought about it and had thought about it, and I had thought quickly of the many cars that laid beyond the chain link fence. And the soft interior of one that had to exist somewhere close by that I could bed down in for the night. And, before any of the mysterious people and animals in the place could even know I was there, I could sneak back home during the first light of morning.

The plan had to be fool proof in order for it to work. It was too bad that I was too young to be anything other than a fool.

As soon as my feet hit the dirt on the other side of the gate, I heard a noise that threatened to stop my heart stop beating.

Barking.

As I spun around, I saw them- three huge, black, ugly dogs.

I cried out and ducked with my arms over my head as they ran at me. I expected that I be killed right then and there. After a heartbeat in which they should have lunged at me, I dared to look up.

I heard the dogs' whimpering first, then they all backed away as a deep, growling voice boomed at them.

"Back off, boys! I SAID BACK OFF NOW!"

I was too shocked to scream out. All I could do was clutch at my legs, gripping them as hard as I could in fear.

When I could finally look up, the first thing I saw of him were two awesomely huge columns covered in denim that were his legs. I kept looking up and up, expecting them to end until they finally came up to his back.

I can remember that first time looking up at him; it was almost the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest for my eyes.

He was a giant.

My first instinct was to RUN. My imagination and the fairy tales I had been fed as a child told me that giants don't save you from certain death out of the kindness of their hearts.

I looked passed the huge boy. Standing beyond him were the dogs. The change from how they had nearly jumped me and how calm and complacent they appeared then was a strange sight to see. It was almost as much as the boy himself was.

The boy turned around slowly. I'll never forget when I saw his face for the first time.

Especially being as angry as he was.

"What are you doing here?!" He roared.

I began backing away towards the gate, trying to get some distance between him and me. the more I moved backwards, the better I could get a better look at him. He _was_ BIG, it wasn't just my imagination. And it could not have been just because I was a child.

From what I could see of his big, long arms that came out of his gray blue mechanic's shirt sleeves, he had muscles that looked to be unbelievably huge in size. His hair was very short-cropped, and was also a shade of yellow paler than my own. I had only gotten a general look at him before I became interested in staring at his pale blue eyes. Fire seemed to blaze in them right back at me, and I had no doubts then that he was fully capable of killing me and boiling me for soup if he wanted to.

"Well?" He was no longer bellowing- and that was a relief.

"I-I'm sorry sir, but I have nowhere else to go!" I yelled it up at him as fast as I could manage, trying hard all the while to not avert my gaze from his own. "Please, please don't throw me out- and don't feed me to the dogs- or eat me!"

His eyebrows rose in surprise. That was definitely not the answer he expected.

"Are you homeless?" His voice had grown almost miraculously gentle sounding, but the soft growl, which I hadn't really noticed until that moment in his voice, never seemed to go away. Was it a permanent thing for him?

I pushed my hair out of my face, using the excuse to look down at the ground. "No, mister, my mom and dad are fighting, and- and- and.." My eyes clouded with tears despite how hard I tried to hold them off. I pressed my face down to the ground in embarrassment as the tears dripped down my cheeks. It wasn't enough that I was miserable and truthfully alone, but I was making myself look like a damn baby in front of a person I hadn't even met.

I had my face turned down, not looking up, so I nearly leapt backwards when I felt the pressure of a hand came down to rest on my shoulder, gently clinging there.

"Come on, that can't be true… don't you have some other family members who'll take care of you?"

I looked up at him, and I saw him crouched down next to me, looking all the more like a giant by the way he was practically sitting next to me in an attempt to lower to my all the more diminished height from where I sat, knees sticking up, butt resting on dirt. I shook my head slowly. "It was either here or the park, and I don't want to die…" for no reason that I myself could understand, I started to whisper, making the boy lean in closer to me to hear me. "...I'm scared of sleeping there."

He was silent for so long that I lifted my head up to look at his face. The long sides of his hair were covering his eyes, and he was scratching his head slightly, and his (I then noticed) slightly abnormal, swollen, fishy lips were twisted in what appeared to be deep thought. "You know this place is terrible, right? This isn't exactly a, uh, hotel for runaways."

I felt a blush spreading like a rash over me. "Well… yeah, but-"

"Just how bad are things at home? Why can't you stay there?" He interrupted. I don't think he really wanted me to speak- he was thinking aloud.

I swallow back a sob and fought against the desire to quiver my lips. I must have thought of my mother and father then, because I can remember tears coming to my eyes. "I can't go back tonight. I can't… I just can't."

And then, the pressure on my arm was gone, and on my head I could feel a soft, rhythmic feel of his fingers starting from my crown and back to the top of my neck. He was _petting _me!

"Jesus, kid. Where else could you stay, I mean, seriously, this is a bad place to live, much less a place to spend the night. And my dad-." he trailed off, no longer petting me like a, well, dog. After a long moment of silence, he sighed. "Well, even this place is better than the street. Just be quiet if my dad comes to check my room later, okay?"

He lifted my chin up so he could see me. As he stared at me, I can believe that was when I fell in love with him.

"Okay?" He repeated, attempting a smile with almost endearing awkwardness.

"Okay." I answered. This time he did smile, and I smiled back, now dazzled by his pale blue eyes. He helped me up, and I walked with him. As we walked, the dogs walked near Horace. They seemed to despise me- which was more a good reason, other than utter infatuation, why I shrank against Horace as we walked.

We eventually reached a small building. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a huge key ring with almost more keys than there was space on the ring. He looked down at it for a moment before pulling out one key in particular and turning it in the door's keyhole. He opened it and looked down at me.

"What's your name, by the way?"

I looked up at him with with what I now cringe to realize as nothing less than unequivocal adoration. "Molly Christoe. What's yours?"

"Me? My name's Horace Mahoney."

My eyes widened at the sound of his name as memory seemed to pour into me like liquid metal into a mould.

AT the sound of his name, uttered from his own lips, I had a flash back of everything I had heard about him. The kids at school (who I was, oh so often, an outcast from) whispered about Horace Mahoney in the utmost tones of pure fear. He was a giant. He was hunchbacked. He spent his nights looking for people to murder- usually unwary motorists.

Staring up at him, I felt as though reality had just sledgehammered two of those stories I had heard in school into a nice, fine powder. Love had a nice way of blinding you in a world of rose colors.

I had tried to keep my shock that had come from learning his name off of my face- but he must have seen the look of shock on my face, because he gave me a questioning look before shaking his head and walking into the small room that comprised of the living space in the shack. I couldn't see into the room, but I heard Horace's clumping footfalls on what sounded like hardwood floor. Finally, after three footfalls, I heard a soft click, and the room was illuminated with a soft glow resonating from a floor lamp next to a very long, very sparsely decorated cot on the right side of the room. The room smelled a bit like rot and dirt, with a mix of oil in it. It smelled, pretty much, like everything in the junkyard. As I had guessed, the floor was hardwood, and the room seemed barely able to hold the tall older boy's prescence who stood on the other side of the room.

As I noticed, he had to duck down a bit to not knock his head on the low ceiling as he began to busily throw a few articles of dirty-looking clothing into a corner of the room. He had picked up a flannel jacket that was lying on the long cot when he turned his head toward me. As was beginning to become usual, my heart did little hops around in my chest.

"Come in and close the door." He said, sounding impatient.

I hurried into the room and attempted to close the door. I tugged on the door, expecting it to shut. Unfortunately, It was so heavy that the only way I finally managed to push it shut was to press all of my weight into pulling the door, and after a lot of loud grunting. When I was done, I turned around and saw that Horace was staring at me, obviously trying not to laugh. He was smiling.

I blushed an even redder shade of pink.

"It's NOT funny."

He didn't say anything, but I could tell that he was close to laughing.

The last nail in the coffin for any sense of seriousness I wanted to convey to this man who I wanted to see me as a desirable, practically _adult _woman died hard moments later. It was because of the fact that whenever I got angry as a kid, my face would bunch together and turn deep red. He saw me do this when he turned around to look at me, and started to really laugh. Any love I may have had for Horace felt like a much strained thing then as I crossed my arms over my chest and I glared at him, waiting for him to stop. When he (finally) did, he wiped at tear out of his eye before going back to clearing his part of the room of the last three articles of clothing.

"Sorry, but I don't think I've ever seen such a funny face on a girl." he said, still bent over, picking up a pair of jeans. "I'm gonna put a blanket on my bed here over my sheet so you can sleep here for the night."

I felt my breath get sucked in as he finished throwing clothes in the corner of the room, and began pulling blankets off of the cot, covering the white sheet on the cot with a blue blanket that could only reach to the lower middle of the cot.

Was I going to sleep next to him? Did he think I was pretty as much as I thought he was? Could he...?

He finished, rubbing his hands together. "Well, you sleep here. I'll take the car I sleep in sometimes. If something happens, or if you need to see me, I'll be in the red convertible a little ways from here…" he scratched his head thoughtfully. "You probably won't be able to find it, actually. I'll come back here tomorrow. And, hey, if you hear someone opening up the door, just hide under the blankets, and stay as still as you possibly can unless you, uh, hear me."

I felt my heart sink as he began to walk past me. I had to stop him, I had to tell him how I suddenly felt about him before he left me here. My only excuse is that I was eight, and I had just found the first (and last) person that I had ever felt such emotion for.

"I love you." I blurted out.

He stopped, his hand on the door's handle. "What did you say?"

He slowly turned his head around.

"I said "I love you"."

I could feel my heart beating into my ribcage as I watched him regard me, confused. There was this long, horrible moment of utter, embarrassed silence before he spoke, a smile breaking open his otherwise stony features.

"Well," he said, beginning to laugh. "I guess I love you too, kid."

He reached over to touch the top of my head with one of his huge hands. He patted and rubbed the top of my head as if I was a dog or a small child, and not a girl who had just bared her soul to him and told him that she loved him. Of course, by that point, the fact that I had just started to learn cursive and that I hadn't even started to lose all of my baby teeth was a most unimportant thing to me.

I was confused- but it wouldn't take me too long before I would realize that I was too young to possibly be taken seriously with any declarations of love I could give to adult- or older kids. He gave me one last pat on the head before walking out. "I'm locking the door." he said, following it with the audible click of the door lock as he shut the door.

I spent the night curled up in the musty-smelling cot, thinking of Horace. I realized that I had never felt anything close to what I was feeling then for anyone before. I had fallen in love with the giant that lived in old man Mahoney's junkyard. And, to make things worse, he didn't seem to feel the same way I did for him that he did for me.

As I was falling asleep, scared and worried about a lot of things, I felt as though I was allowed to feel good about just one thing at least. At least, I thought, the boy I was now in hopeless love with was not the monster everybody in school said that he was. He was no murderer.

I once heard that it would take a book the size of a dictionary to fill up with ironic things that people don't really know- in short, _little did he/she know(s). _Like, for example, Jerry kissed his wife goodnight every night, but little did his wife know that he had been doing the same with another woman only ten minutes before he would kiss her for the past week and a half. The irony would be that Jerry's wife believed that her husband was loving- when the reality was that he was a cheating, back-stabbing bastard.

As I laid down, believing that out of all of the things I had to worry about, that the boy I was in love with was not, in fact, the murderer I had heard of was not one. Little did I know, however, that what the other children in school _were _right about Horace's affinity for murdering motorists- but they were only off by two more years.


	2. It Started Turnin'

**Chapter 2—It Started Turnin' (Revised)**

* * *

I woke up to the sound of jingling in the door lock. My brain processed it as someone opening the locked door, and I was panicked at the thought of confronting old man Mahoney. I tried to get the blanket over me in a flurry, only ending up on the hardwood floor next to the bed for all of my efforts when I jerked the blanket too hard that was wrapped tightly around my body, groaning in pain as I got the wind got knocked out of me.

The door opened, and the first thing I saw was a head ducking through the highest part of the doorway, peering in at me. The male continued standing there for a moment, then began laughing.

"Wow, what happened to you?"

It was, thankfully, Horace's comforting, rumbling tones I heard from the great, dark shape that ducked its way into the shadows of the room. From behind him, a bright puddle of sunlight spilled after Horace, dogging his heels with every step in he took. By the time he had come near my side, the light nearly filled the whole of the dark one-roomer.

I groaned in embarrassment and buried my burning hot face in my arm. "Nothing." I said, barely controlling either a torrent of tears or a fit of rage.

"Come on, I'll help you up." he said, grabbing onto me and pulling me up before I could protest. Not that I much wanted to. "How'd you sleep?" he asked as I regretfully latched off his warm, warm hand and began steadying myself.

"Fine…"

He began to pull his blanket back onto his bed, and looked back at me as I began to leave. I stopped suddenly before I left the doorway, and stared back at him.

Oh, but I hoped that it wouldn't be the last time I would ever see him! Unfortunately for an uneloquent child, I had no idea what to tell him besides the fact that I loved him… and that didn't exactly work before. He looked at me, and I stared as far into his eyes as I could, trying to memorize his, to me, lovely, absolutely perfect features.

"Oh… are you wondering where I got _this_?" He rubbed at his chin.

I blushed. No, I wasn't interested in that, but realizing even then that trying to explain to him that I really did love him was not the best strategy.

I nodded.

"Ah, well, I was born like this, that's why I'm only here with my dad and not my… my mom." I looked at him with my eyebrows furrowed. I couldn't understand why anyone would leave him, since he was so perfect to me. I was young, and I didn't understand how people quite viewed beauty or perfection as.

"I don't get it." I said, confused.

He looked at me, probably just as confused as I was. "uh… right. Well, kid, I guess if something like this happens again, you can come here, as long as you use the normal entrance. I work up there usually, but if you see anyone else up there, wait until you see me take over for him. I guess I'd rather you be here than sleepin' on the street. But, make sure you use the normal entrance, O.K? I might not be there to save you next time our dogs try to tear you to pieces- do you understand?"

I nodded vigorously, and I began to unwillingly turn around- sensing that our time together had come to an end.

"Wait, kid, can you get back home without a ride?"

I looked back at him. "Why?"

"Well, I 'spose I could drive you back home- you **do **know where home is, right?"

Yeah, I knew where home was, and yes, I could get back there without his help, but more time with him seemed wonderful to me. "I know where I live, but I would like a ride home."

He sighed. "Well, at least I can make sure you get home alright- follow me, I'll ride you home in my tow truck." I walked with him through the junkyard, leaning against him and knowing that he would mistake me wanting to be near him as me being frightened. I think I already knew that at that time, and I used it to be close to him since he didn't seem to ever realize that I was head-over-heels for him. He put one big hand on my back, and patted me every now and then. We reached the tow truck near the gate just as the sun began to shine through and above the stack of abandoned cars, bathing the area in warm light. I looked up at Horace, and I was taken away with how soft his hair looked in the light. As we neared the tow truck, I blurted out that I loved him. He only looked down, laughed, and said that he loved me, too. I knew that he didn't mean that he was in love with me.

He helped me into my side of the truck before walking over to the gate to unlock it with yet another key on his ring and swinging the gate open. His head almost reached as high as the fence, and he only had to barely tap the gate to open it up. He came back and crouched to get into the tow truck. As soon as he got his head in, he gave me an almost goofy grin that made me laugh. He started the truck, and we had barely driven into the actual road when I yelped and nearly got sent flying into the air when the truck began making creaking and groaning noises.

"Oh yeah, buckle up." He said. As soon as the truck seemed to settle down, I scrambled to get the seat belt on me before it would begin shaking up and down again.

"Why is it doing this?!" I yelled over the loud creaking noises.

He groaned. "It's hard to explain, but just don't take your belt off until we get you home." I told him which street I lived on before he began digging in the compartment next to him. Her growled loudly, and I backed up against the door in fear. He looked up at me, and gave me a sheepish look. "I'm sorry to scare you; I'm just looking for my cigarettes." He dug around in the compartment for a few more seconds until he pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes. He drew one out and plugged it into his mouth before lighting it. He exhaled smoke, and looked down at me. "Oh- sorry." He muttered, cranking his window open. I watched the smoke curl out of the window before I returned my gaze back to his face. I looked at him, a little turned-off at seeing him smoke.

He looked over at me. "What?"

I didn't want to say anything to him- next to how I felt about him, smoking wasn't that big a deal, but I couldn't help feeling a little worried. As a kid, you only get told 50 million times about how bad cigarettes are for you, and how it'll kill you. "How old are you?" I asked.

He laughed a bit and turned back to the windshield. "17. Why?" I wrinkled my nose up as I got a slight whiff of the smoke. Ick.

"Well, I don't think you're a'possed to smoke. I think you gotta be at least 21 to do that."

He laughed- a surprised sound. "Wow, kid, how do you figure that?" I blushed. I was getting another one of those feelings that he didn't really take me all that seriously.

"My teacher says you got to be at least 21 to smoke." He pursed his lips together to probably keep from smiling, and gave his cigarette another suck.

"Well, kid," He said, exhaling the smoke away from my face. "I haven't ever gone to school either- I think that's illegal, too." This time he _did _grin when he saw the shocked look on my face.

"Why don't you go to school?" I said.

He shrugged. "Dad needs me here, plus I don't really like goin' there with this mug for a face." He rubbed his thumb over his chin thoughtfully, and I felt my heart ache for him at the thought of him being made fun of like I was at school because of how I dressed and acted. Maybe it was just little girl kindness, or maybe I just wanted to be near him again, but I reached over to him and gave him a slight hug around his stomach. He looked down at me and gave a surprised chuckle.

"Hey now- sit back in your seat!" He said, not unkindly. He gave me a small shove back into my seat.

By that time, we were going through what could laughingly be called downtown, and I noticed the change in his attitude and demeanor immediately. He was sucking on his cigarette more often, and there was no smile on his face. He kept his eyes glued to the street in front of him. He must have noticed how I was (yet again) staring at him, because he turned to look at me. He coughed nervously.

"So, kid, you live a little ways from here, right?" I nodded.

He was now down to the butt of his cigarette, and when it let out, he stubbed it out in jabbing motions on the dashboard, which I then noticed was full of small burn marks on his side. He then tossed the butt on the ground of the tow truck, and began to make slight wiping motions with his hand on his mouth. As soon as we turned off of Main Street, I recognized the immediate change in him- he was much calmer, and his lips turned back upwards.

Within a few more turns, we reached my house. "Stop here." I said to him as I saw my house. He looked over at me as I began to un-do my seat belt.

'It was nice seein' you, kid." He said. There was a small amount of hesitance in his voice- as if he didn't know what to say, but felt moved to.

"It was nice meetin' you, Horace." I said. My hand was on the handle of the door, and I looked up at those pale blue (and slightly bloodshot) eyes of his.

"Am I going to be able to see you again?" I asked, hoping he would answer like how I wanted him to.

He sat back in his seat, scratching at his head. "…Hell kid, I dunno. Maybe. I guess if you _wanted_ to, you could check by the junkyard sometime as long as my dad doesn't see you." I nodded, happy to at least have that. I began to open the door, and I looked over at him.

He had a suddenly very sad, lonely look in his eyes, and I couldn't stand to have him looking like that. I smiled at him. He blinked and smiled back at me before he coughed and looked away.

"You're not gonna tell your parents where you went, are you?"

I shook my head. "No."

He sighed in relief. "Good. They might get the wrong idea, and…" He trailed off with a laugh. "Just don't tell them if you don't have to, alright, kid?"

"They probably won't even realize I was gone." I said simply. It was true, though. When I went in after I exited the car, they were asleep on the couch, and wasn't even aware I had come out of my room last night. Much less run away for the night.

Horace looked at me then. If it was possible for him to look even sadder or lonelier than before, he did so then. He opened his arms up in my direction. "Come here." He said softly.

I didn't understand why he had reacted that way at the time- but I accepted as eagerly as I could.

"It's alright, I promise, life isn't always goin' to be this awful- people like us are bound to get out of this stronger than our parents." He was rocking me back and forth, and I, unused to seeing older people react this way, didn't understand why he was doing what he was doing. I would only figure out years after that, recalling the barest snippets of his life that I had been witness to, that he was trying to comfort me, probably while remembering his own damaged upbringing. To this day, I've always figured that his upbringing, and probably his temper, made him into what everyone but me remembers him as: a serial killer.

When he finally let me go, I looked up at him questioningly.

He patted me on the head. "Just promise me that whatever happens in there today- no frowns, and don't cry. If you cry, you're letting them win and have control over you."

Slightly psychotic advice to give a kid who happens to look up at you with an unbelievable amount of deference, but I still can't begrudge the man for giving me this advice- especially when it was instrumental in what had transformed me from the pushover I had always been, and into the emotionally powerful woman that I am today.

I nodded at him, taking in his probably very unreliable and irresponsible advice to give to an impressionable eight year old girl before jumping out of the tow truck.

Before he drove off, I waved at him, and I felt my heart skip a beat or two when he waved back.


	3. Turned Completely

**Chapter 3- Turned Completely (Revised)**

**Author's Note:** (Sha!- it's revised!)

This story lives on because of all of the support I've been getting- thanks, you guys! Anyway, this is a chapter before the excrement hits the fan. As usual, this story's dedicated to the Main Attraction- Horace Mahoney. Now, enjoy. Or maybe not- it's your choice in the end.

* * *

**The day** he dropped me off was a normal day at school for me. I had come home that morning to find my mom and dad passed out in the living room. Things hadn't looked up for me much of the day as normal, but it felt as though it was the most beautiful day that I had ever been alive simply because I had met and talked to Horace not too long ago. I left school that afternoon with the full expectation of going home- but I suppose that I somehow zoned out and came out of it across the street from Mahoney's Junkyard. I figured that since I had mistakenly traveled there, that I might as well visit Horace again. I began to walk over to the closed-up gate that I had entered last night before I realized that the three ugly dogs inside of it were napping next to the gate.

I ran to the other side of the junkyard, and hid when I saw movement near the front gate. I looked closer then realized that it was someone leaning against the small building that served as the front office I had seen. I recognized the shock of blond hair and the tall stature immediately as belonging to Horace.

After the moment of initial recognition, I saw that what he was doing was smoking a cigarette. I was turned off, but at the same time mesmerized as I watched him exhale a long thread of smoke. Staring at him didn't last for very long when Horace's head turned in my direction. He looked puzzled at first, but he dropped what was left of his cigarette and gave it a slight stomp before turning towards me. I walked to the entrance and lent forward, thrusting my fingers through the chain links in the fence that separated us.

"I didn't expect to see _you _again." He said, opening the gate.

To me, the excuse I gave sounded completely innocent. "Oh… I was bored, and I didn't want to head home yet."

He shrugged. "Well, if you're going to stay, I hope you don't mind following me to somewhere in here. If it's all the same to you, I wouldn't like to have one of my dad's friends to tell my dad that he saw me talkin' to a six year old."

"I'm eight." I said, crossing my arms.

"Uhh.. right, eight. Well, you game or not?"

I nodded, and he began to walk off into the junkyard. We walked past row after row of tall stacks of rusted cars before I began to wonder where we were going. We hadn't said a word to each other, but it didn't really seem necessary until I began to feel a bit sick of walking.

"Where are we going..?" I asked.

He laughed. "_There!"_ I looked at what he was pointing at- and I saw it for the first time.

It was a red convertible that looked as though it had come straight from an old-fashioned drive-thru- the ones where the waitresses came out to deliver the food and got orders on roller skates. It sat in the clearance that was covered in weed-choked grass. By the look of it, I guessed that the clearance itself had just recently been un-covered from under something heavy that had once been sitting on top of it. Unlike most of the junkyard, it had no car stacks in it- the red convertible sat alone in the grass.

As we walked closer to the clearance, I realized that the wheels of the car were gone, and that it was set on top of huge cinderblocks. The car was in excellent condition- in fact, it looked as though someone had taken to giving it a hand wash and a wax at least once a month. The only sign of age the car had was in its yellowed cloth hood.

I watches as Horace walked over to it and threw the car door open. He crouched down into it and sat down, shutting the driver's side door with a gentleness close to near reverence or love. He sat there in his seat for a second before he saw me. He rolled the car's window open and poked his head out. "Well? Are you comin' or not?"

I ran over to the passenger's side and threw the door open. When I sat down, I tried to buckle my seat belt up out of habit before realizing, _ohh yeah, _the car's not going anywhere.

I put the seat belt back and hoped that he hadn't seen.

I turned to him, realizing, embarrassed, that he had seen. He was looking at me then with the same look of barely concealed amusement as he usually did.

"What?" I asked, feeling my face reddening.

He shook his head. "Nothing, nothing."

For the longest moment, he sat there, staring out the windshield. His blue eyes were hazy, as if he were somewhere else a million miles from here. The way he was staring at nothing silently made me feel very alone all of a sudden. As if he had left me here with his shell of a body, and had gone off.

"So- what are we going to do here?"

He was quiet before a slow smile spread across his lips. I watched as he pulled the lever for the seat back, throwing his seat completely backwards. He shut his eyes. He stayed like that for a short while until I became worried that he had fallen asleep and I reached over to shake him.

"What?" he asked, sounding exhausted.

"Are you falling asleep?"

He groaned- a sound that made me feel all warm inside. Ugh, damn my huge crush on him, but it made me so drooly around him.

"No- I'm… thinking."

I gave him a skeptical look that I forgot was wasted on his shut eyes. "Well, it looks to me like you're s_leeping, _not thinking."

He expelled a long breath of air. "Sleeping, thinking, there's no difference."

Looking at him like that suddenly made me want to smile like he always seemed to. "There's a lot of differences- when you're asleep, you can't think."

He shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm meditating. How's that?"

Back then, I didn't know what meditation was, but I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of Horace. I stayed silent, and he smirked at me.

We stayed quiet for a long, long time until I began to wonder if he had fallen asleep.

"Horace? Horace?" I whispered.

"What?" he said, sleepiness definitely in his voice.

I felt like a nuisance all of a sudden- he sounded so _tired, _and I was probably bugging him. "Do you want me to leave so you can sleep?" I asked in a timid little voice.

He shot up in his seat so fast I almost yelped and flew backwards. "What?! No, you stay- errr… ummm…. I mean, you can go if you _want, _not that I'm saying you don't _have _to stay, it's just that I…" he coughed, his face growing red. I always thought it was particularly sweet the way his face reddened when he was embarrassed, and the way it seemed to glow in comparison to his pale blond hair. It still makes me fantasize about kissing him.

"No, I didn't want to go… I just thought that you might want to get some sleep- you looked tired."

"Oh." He leaned back in his seat, raising his arms up to make his palms into a pillow for his head. He was quiet as he stared back out the windshield.

After a long while, I began to wonder if he wanted me here because he wanted someone to talk to. My heart stuck in my chest. I could not keep the memory of what I had confided in him yesterday from my mind. "Horace?"

"Hmm?"

Now or never. "I love you."

A small snort from him. "You really mean that, do ya?"

God, how my heart skipped. "Yes."

He said nothing at first, then he grunted and turned a bit in his seat. "That's nice." He simply said.

After a while, I felt the awkwardness of what I said feeling like it was close to consuming me. I decided to speak, lack of anything to say or otherwise. "Why did you bring me here?"

One side of his lips turned up. "I just wanted to show you what I do- I thought you could use somewhere quiet and safe to sit and think about things like I do every day."

I leaned back. "Oh? Are you sure you don't want to talk?"

He shook his head, and stretched his arms above his head. Because of the length of his arms, it was not very far. They made an audible crack as he stretched them. "No, not unless you want to. I was just planning to sit here with you and get some quiet time in."

I was silent, and he seemed grateful for it. I didn't understand it then- or the 15th time we did that after school when I decided to walk to the junkyard to visit him, but I eventually understood why he liked to do that with me. Vaguely. I think that he knew how hectic both of our lives were- and he found it soothing to be enclosed in his favorite car with a kindred soul. We could sit there for perhaps a full hour- and after the first few times doing it, I began to enjoy it instead of feeling bored. I would allow my mind to drift off- and maybe it was similar to the place Horace's mind went, but I always doubted it.

His was a more calming, happier place than mine, and where he had that as a crutch to lean on in the two years we knew each other, I had to use him.

To my surprise after a long while of being used to going in there with him, the radio worked. He just tuned it in one day for no apparent reason, and I can remember being upset that he didn't tell me the car had a working radio. He just gave me another one of his amused looks (like he always did when I continued in my crusade of telling him that I truly loved him), and said that music, as nice as it was, was only a distraction from the silence in the car that he liked so much. We listened to different rock stations with bands I didn't know the names of playing music from generations long gone. I was in luck, however, because he knew every song that came on.

An obvious favorite of his was "Life Is A Highway" by Tom Cochran. That usual veil of stillness around him always dissipated when that song came out. He held nothing out when that song came on; sometimes he would halfway _bawl _with happiness when it came on. He knew every word to it, and a smile that stretched across his face never failed to form when he heard the beginnings of that song.

His deep voice singing along to it never failed to make me smile, either, although I could never quite get the lyrics straightened out as well as he did.

Ah, but I can still remember the first few lines to the song- how could I not, since he would never pass up an opportunity to sing to it?

_Life's like a road that you travel on,_  
_When there's one day here _

_and the next day gone  
Sometimes you bend,_

_sometimes you stand,  
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind,  
_

_There's a world outside every darkened door,  
_

_Where blues won't haunt you anymore  
_

_Where the brave are free _

_and lovers soar,  
Come ride with me to the distant shore,  
We won't hesitate _

_break down the garden gate  
There's not much left today…_

After that sober verse, he would start to grin from ear-to-ear as he sung the rest of the song, his upper body bobbing slightly from side to side. The sight of him so happy and singing was one memory that I'll never forget.

The two years I spent with him from time-to-time were all full of memorable times like that- they were years of hiding from his dad, following him through different parts of the junkyard, quietly sharing the comfort of his car, and listening to "Life Is A Highway". Of those years, I was never again afraid of my parents, or of anyone at school- I could always imagine what would happen if Horace was there to defend me in those bad times- a big, temperamental friend that would pound any bullies of mine into the pavement. Despite my learned lack of tenderness when dealing with my parents and their fighting (I rarely cried over their fighting after I met and fell in love with my giant) I found reasons to spend the night at the junked car lot every once in a while. I even made enough excuses for him to sleep in the one roomer with me- with one of us lying on the bed and the other on the floor. Those sleep overs have since become precious in my memory- especially when he pulled out the bunny ears and the black and white small television for us to watch together on the bed before bed.

As fate would have it, he did pull up one day to pick me up from school as he sometimes did- and he looked out of his tow truck for me to only find a big pack of boys dropping my books on the ground out of my backpack and me being shoved down next to them.

I was usually pretty scrappy for a little kid- but this kid, Dereck Sander, was bigger than me, and had a pack of drooling idiots for followers. The last time I had gotten in a fight with him I had managed to hit two of them, but they eventually shoved me to the ground and pounded me until I started crying. For someone like me, it was an embarrassing moment that I didn't want to repeat under any circumstances.

None of us saw him come out of the tow truck- next thing any of us knew, Dereck was being held up in the air by the back of his shirt. When he looked around to see who was holding him up- he was horrified to realize that it was the giant who lived in the junkyard who was holding him by his shirt. He screamed, but Horace clapped a hand over his mouth.

"What are you _doing?"_ Horace practically growled.

The boy grew as pale as the cement he was hovering over, but he stayed silent.

"Speak up, boy. I expect you to have a good reason to be doing that to my friend."

The boy stuttered wordlessly as Horace's eyes stared unblinkingly at him. All of Dereck's goons were staring at Horace- sizing him up with looks of horror in their eyes.

"I-I-I was just playing." he finally stuttered. Horace dropped the boy to the ground abruptly. He cried out as his ass hit the pavement.

"If you're going to pretend that waving her books in front of her, and _shoving _her is a fun way to play, then I will play along for today- but if you think for one _second _that I won't throttle you until you're unable to walk right for the rest of your life if and when I see you doing that again or hear of you doing that again, then you're going to be walkin' with a permanent shake for the rest of your life, okay?"

The boy nodded as hard as he could and scuttled backwards on his hands a knees. In a way to reinforce just how big he was, all Horace had to do to get close to Dereck was to bend over slightly. He brought his lips close to Dereck's ear, and whispered something to him.

If it was possible for Dereck to be paler, he paled even more.

Dereck stood up and walked away as fast as he could. His goons ran off after him, leaving only me and Horace. I was left wondering what Horace could have said to him to make him even more frightened.

As soon as the boys ran off beyond sight, Horace looked down at me and winked. My heart melted into my chest, and when he helped me into his tow truck a little while later, I could not stop smiling as I played the scene over and over again in my head. He didn't say anything to me as we drove back to the junkyard.

Those years were wonderful- I was never again the same lonely, scared girl that I had become because of how my parents had raised me. I had him, and he had someone to talk to or perhaps relate to in some small way.

I just wish that I had more than the two years that I spent with him.

It was after those two years were over that trouble occurred with almost heartbreaking suddenness that took more than our happiness away.

_**(Lyrics to "Life Is A Highway" By Tom Cochran used above)**_


	4. Twisted

**Chapter 4- Twisted (A Change) - (Revised)**

* * *

You know, a fond memory that I'll always carry in the place of a life we could have had together was that one sunny day in May. It was the day that my near daily admissions of love turned into my first kiss.

Horace's dad was prowling around the junkyard that day, so we were just wandering around Pearl Lake. We had two burgers from Sofie's Burger Palace- I had a junior cheese, and he had a Crown Jewel- the biggest burger they made. It was nice- I liked Sofie's burgers, and I still do- but what I wanted more than anything that day was a kiss from the big guy that was walking next to me. I had watched some made-for-TV movie the night before, and I couldn't stop thinking about Horace since I had seen it. It was a romance, and it, as I recognize now, pretty much revolved around a couple in an unrealistic courtship. I didn't care about that, though.

The only part of it that stuck in my mind was the ending kiss that sent my mind _reeling _with true little girl romantic fantasies.

After we had both thrown the yellow paper wrappers with that familiar crown logo away, we walked back to the tow truck and he drove me home. He parked out front of my house, leaned over, and smiled at me. "You have a nice night, alright?"

I looked into his eyes, and murmured a weak little, "Yeah."

I didn't even control what happened next- but I found myself reached forward, and planting a kiss on his lips.

It was nothing more than an innocent peck- but that kiss (my FIRST kiss) was the most amazing that I had ever experienced. He didn't respond- the poor late teenage boy wasn't expecting an elementary school kid to kiss him, probably- but, it was still oh so sweet.

As soon as it was over, I pulled away, diving out of the car and scrambled back to the house as fast as I could with that huge, goofy grin spread on my face and the thumping of my heart drowning out the noise of him driving away in the sputtering old tow truck. I slammed the screen door shut and leaned my back against it.

I crossed my arms over my chest, and found it impossible to not grin from ear-to-ear. A kiss. A _kiss._

I found it impossible to sleep that night- I stayed up drawing until four the following morning.

The next day at school was a blur of innocent romantic fantasies involving Horace, and a recess period where I laid down in the middle of the old, rusted "spinner" in the park. I just laid there, going in circles with it, watching long, wavy strands of my pale blond hair flying over my face with each rotation. Going home that night without seeing Horace wasn't a choice for me that day- I walked (ran, more appropriately) to the junkyard. When I got there, however, I was greeted by the sight of an ambulance and a small armada of police cruisers parked next to the junkyard. It was a definite change from the warmth and the romantic theme that had been a part of my whole day.

I snuck up as close as I could to the scene that was taking place. Through the chain link and visible barrier of ambulance trucks and police cruisers I saw Horace's father being carried away in a stretcher.

The ambulance workers all stared down at him- touching his neck and chest- before they all shook their heads. One of them walked away and came back with a huge black bag. I watched as they zipped him up- and as a surprisingly stoic man that I recognized as Horace walked out of the junkyard, following the paramedics and the cops. I had little idea of what was going on, but I knew there was something wrong with his father. I was not ignorant to the idea of _death_, but I did not know what happened when you did drop.

All I knew was that something very, very bad had happened- and the look on Horace's face as he quietly watched the trucks and police cruisers pull away frightened me more than the first time I met him- that look of rage as he scared his dogs away from me.

I got up from my spot and ran over to Horace only when I was sure that the ambulance and the police cruisers had gone a good distance. "Horace? HORACE? What happened?" I stood in front of him- but he acted as if he had not heard me. He stared forward at where the train of vehicles had driven away into the distance.

"Horace?" I grabbed onto the area of his jeans that covered one side of his hips and tugged.

"Go home, Molly." he said in an expressionless tone of voice.

"What? No, what _happened_ here-"

"I said, GO HOME," he look down at me and pushed me away. "for once, Molly!"

I was shocked that he would yell at me like that- let alone push me away so violently. I was, for the first time after I had met him, scared of him. After I steadied myself, I looked up at him, horrified, as he stared forward at the road. It was that empty look that scared me even more than him pushing me. It was as if he was staring at the road- but not really seeing anything.

The bloodshot look that his eyes he always had because of how he rarely slept and the way he was always exposed around exhaust fumes stuck out even more than the pale blue color of his eyes did, almost making his eyes look as if they had turned a blood red.

I stared up at him until he turned to look down at me. I had never before ever seen him as I did right then.

I saw him as every person in town saw him. What he was was no different from his animals- kept in check by his master. His eyes seemed to not deny any assumptions of violence I had of him as I looked into them. I bolted away as fast as I could when he didn't turn away. I felt as thought he had been looking at me as if to say: _Now you see how I am? I'm not gentle; I'm not your knight in shining armor- I'm a monster. _

I did not stop until I reached the house, and I locked the door behind me as quickly as I could leap past the door's threshold.

I calmed myself down by nightfall and turned on the local news channel. Within five minutes of turning it on, I realized the full extent of what I had witnessed earlier that day at the junkyard.

A full news team covered it, and every detail (except for interviews with the late Joseph Mahoney's shut-in son) was covered.

According to what I saw that night and in later accounts that I would scour for in later years, Joseph Mahoney had not been watching how he was backing a huge piece of machinery up in an area full of stacked old cars and smashed backwards into a particularly large stack. Horace heard the loud crash, and got there in time to find his father trapped in the broken body of the vehicle. When the paramedics and the cops got there, they pulled him out- and realized that no matter how fast they could have gotten there, he could not have possibly been saved.

His body was pretty much crushed in every definition of the word from the weight of the cars on impact, and there was no guessing or wondering needed to realize what it was that killed him with the exception being if anyone wondered what part of his body being caved in had resulted in his death.

Watching it, I soon felt as though I deserved to crawl under a rock for running away from Horace when I knew that he had no one to comfort him with his only family member gone.

I walked to the junkyard the following afternoon, and I hoped that he wouldn't hate me for leaving him when he needed someone- even if he had snapped at me. When I got there, the front gate was wide open- something that Horace's father never ever allowed under any circumstances. Even if he had died, I didn't believe that Horace would have left it swinging open.

I walked in, and soon found him walking around. He looked as though he had just come out of the kennel where they had kept the dogs. He saw me and gave me an bizarrely huge smile. I froze mid step as I remembered the bright red color of his eyes that I had witnessed the night before. They reminded me of the eyes of those dogs that could have torn me apart the first night I met him if he had not saved me.

_And that anger in his voice..._

He almost looked like a new person compared to how he had acted yesterday. He walked up to me, dropping a tin pail that he had been carrying that I recognized as what he used to feed the dogs with under normal circumstances. Were the circumstances there truly normal, then?

"Molly! How are you?"

I stared at him, the memory of the black bag and his red eyes playing in my head.

"I'm okay… but what about you? Are you alright?" I said, taking tentative steps into the lot.

He laughed a little, thrusting his hand through his hair. "Oh- it's been busy, yeah, yeah, busy."

I looked up at him in disbelief.

He and his father may not have gotten along very well, but he had told me on many occasions that his father looked after him when it was all said and done. He told me that his dad was all he had, that he didn't know what he would do if he was ever left alone in the world, as he had put it.

He was out of his usual uniform that day, I realized then. He was wearing a white shirt. It shouldn't have been a big deal. Not a big deal, that is, if I had not known him well enough to know that he would not have been seen in the junkyard out of uniform.

"Where's your uniform?" I said, no longer walking forward.

My eyes traveled down to look at the legs of his pants. His jeans, always so faded they seemed almost white, it seemed, were as normal as any other day, but for some reason…

The usual dark stains that were without doubt oil, grease, or small spots of splashed gasoline seemed different that day. They were darker stains- and to me they looked more like a reddish-rust in color.

He must have seen me staring at his legs, for he quickly covered the spots on the front of his upper legs with his hands. He smiled. "Ugh. I was working on a car before you came- I haven't gotten to changing my pants yet." I nodded in understanding. That was good enough for me; it wasn't like it was unusual for him to have all kinds of dirt and grime on his clothes. "I'm kind of busy today, but I'd like to get some cleaner pants on before we can talk. Just stay here while I get changed." He looked down at me for a short while, and spoke slowly. "Don't… move."

I nodded and watched as he walked into his "home" that was the small building I had slept in the first night I had met him. For a moment, I decided to do what he had told me to do. I stood still, and got the immediate feeling that there was something different about Horace since the day before. And it wasn't depression that I felt was different. He wasn't even sad, and it all seemed so... weird.

_Don't move_. That was what he had said, but something else in me reminded me that his father was no longer around to be afraid of. He was probably just teasing me like he did whenever he had the chance. Although it was something stupid to tease me about.

I walked around the entrance way first, looking at the area that had become familiar to me as a lot of the junkyard had become in the past year and a half.

Like the whole junkyard, cars surrounded the entrance's pathway in stacks. Unlike a lot of the junkyard, though, the entrance way was crowded with some cars elevated in the air by cinder blocks or jacks with their hoods thrown open and wires sticking up out of them. This was where Horace worked day-after-day, fixing one up as cheaply as he could before moving onto another one. All of the cars he fixed were sent to some of his father's friends in the used car business, I would later find out.

I walked around the broken cars, generally looking around. I didn't know what I was looking for- I walked around as I wondered what he did the night before. Namely, what had he done the night before to make him so cheery after having watched his dad become crushed to death under the same things he worked on every day of his life?

I was unexpectedly snapped out of my thoughts when I heard the sound of something chewing on something near me. I turned my head and I realized that I was standing in front of the large caged-in area where those ugly black dogs that Horace raised stayed in when it was not night. I looked over at the four dogs in the kennel who, for once, weren't noticing me.

At least two were gnawing on bones. Big bones, almost like the kind I used to see on old episodes of _The Flintstones_. _Brontosaurus bones_, my mind told me. It was stupid, but I couldn't think of anything that would make bones that big. It wasn't just the size of the bones that surprised me.

There were numerous times before that day in which I had been with Horace after he had had a fight with his dad over giving the dogs canned food (which was cheaper, his father argued) or stuff from the butcher's that was going to get thrown out (Which Horace would argue that the dogs liked more).His father had gotten his way as he so often did with the dog's food- so, where did the these huge bones come from, and that mush of red stuff that was in the big steel dog bowl? Did he buy a bunch of stuff from the butcher's last night?

"I thought I told you to stay put."

I yelped and turned around. Horace was standing there, wearing clean pants and a look of growing anger.

"I told you to stay put, didn't I?"

I shook my head, then, quickly deciding to switch tactics, nodded, the memory of how he had yelled at me the night before fresh and searing. I truthfully had no idea whether I should agree or just pretend that I hadn't heard.

He sighed. "It's a mess back here- I didn't want you to see this. Well, I haven't got much time today... I just wanted-" he had ahold of me by then, and had begun to steer me to the front gate. "-I just wanted to ask if you'd go to dad's funeral in two weeks. I don't really want to be the only one there, besides the minister."

I looked up at him tentatively. Could I really refuse to be with him after I had left him alone yesterday? "I'll go."

He smiled. "Good, good! And, hey, with him gone, we'll be able to spend more time here without worrying."

He laughed. It weirded me out, the way it sounded. He never smiled this often or laughed this much. Not only that, but what was there to be happy about with your only blood relation dead?

Something else made me wonder. "I thought you said you hated this place."

He laughed again. "Well, I've turned over a new leaf since yesterday. I _like _this place a lot more. I think there's going to be a lot of changes with me and the junkyard from now on. Good changes."

I didn't answer. Changes? Well, as long as he was happy, I couldn't feel better for him, I guessed.

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay? I've got some stuff to take care of today- but you be sure to have fun for both of us, alright?" he looked at me, smiling and rubbing my chin with his big hand. Despite how strange and uncomfortable all of it felt, I nonetheless felt a pleasant warmth grow in my chest, just like it always did when he touched me. "Alright?"

I hesitated, but nodded.--

As Horace said, Joseph Mahoney's funeral took place in the Open Arms Cemetery two weeks later. Besides me, Horace, the minister, and a few of the late owner of the biggest Junkyard in Eastern Wisconsin's business buddies, no one came to pay their respects to, as I learned that day, the wealthy man who was laid to rest.

As Horace had been like the previous week, he didn't look sad at all- in fact, he looked up-beat to a level that still made me on edge around him, my undying love for him or not.


	5. Remember Me

**Chapter 5- Remember Me (Revised)**

One morning I turned on the TV in my parent's house. I can remember flipping past a local news station when I had to turn it back as I heard a name I knew all too well said by a newscaster.

"_And it seems as though the local terror- a previously unknown and gruesome serial killer- has now been identified as the late owner of a local junkyard in New Hafen county's son- Horace Mahoney has been identified, without a doubt, as the notorious "Breaker" of Wisconsin- he was killed late last night in a rain of gunfire between him and… at least six police officers, two of which have lost their lives while attempting to restrain him, and join the Breaker's five victims that are known to date. Although we all mourn the loss of our two dedicated police officers Deputy Shirley Kitman and Deputy Charles Connoly, all of Wisconsin celebrates the demise of a monster…"_

I felt as though my whole world had collapsed within itself. It would be pointless to relay the many hours, days, weeks, months, and years I spent mourning since that quiet morning- but I never cried more than the first day I heard the news. I find it weird that most everything bad that happens wears thin the second day as the shock of whatever it is ebbs away. But the demise of your true love never really wears off, no matter who or what he was before his death.

When I gathered up the courage to go back to the junkyard, I got there with the faint hope that everything I saw on the TV that morning was fake; the second-long video of the black bag that carried Horace's full weight that had to be carried by three people wasn't real.

When I got there, however, I found the gates closed up and covered with yellow police tape. I ripped the gates open and ran inside. As I walked around, I found the first signs of something bad that had happened there. Empty bullet canisters were strewn about the entrance like the hollow golden brothers to the rocks that covered the ground. It was other-worldly, seeing those bullet canisters.

I was glad when I was finally able to unlock my gaze from the brightly shining canisters that lay on the ground, but the deserted look of the entrance made me feel less than better. The area where the dogs that I oh so hated was left swinging open, not unlike the door to Horace's one-room house. That door, too, was left to swing open and bang against the wall outside of it. The lack of barking told me that they were nowhere near here- had they been taken with Horace?

I walked past the broken-down cars until I came across one that made me stop in my tracks. This one, like many of the rest, sat on cinder blocks with its hood open, exposing rusted parts that were no doubt in need of being tossed out. The thing that made me feel as though my heart was about to stop beating was the sight of the mostly dried maroon-colored puddle in front of the car.

I stepped closer to it, all the while feeling more and more as though the ground was being jerked out from under me. I quickly recognized it for what it was once I stepped in front of it. It would come as no surprise to anyone reading this that it was blood. If only to reinforce the realization of what kind of awful violence that must have occurred during the night, I saw more golden bullet casings scattered in and around the drying puddle of blood.

What had happened there?

I hadn't slept over at Horace's house since his father had passed away, so I didn't know how he had spent his nights. Could he have really killed people… could my friend really have abducted those people and killed them?

I walked away from the car, and kept walking until I came to Horace's doorway. I peeked in and walked into the room, searching for something, not knowing what it was. When I felt satisfied, I found that nothing was really out of place. Everything looked as though Horace was still alive.

His clothes were scattered on the ground, his bed unmade, and boxes of Chinese take-out from the lousy Chinese restaurant in town were stacked all over the room. It depressed me as I looked upon the objects that belonged to Horace in life- they waited for a young man to return, not knowing that he would never come home again.

I think that it was that false sense of _normalcy _that broke my heart the most in that room where he lived. It wasn't the memories of the place that came flooding back when I looked in that room- although there were memories. Memories that were bright and optimistic instead of the dark and depressing emotions that filled this place up in my own mind, but it was the feeling that those random items were waiting and wishing for his arrival that hurt me the most. They, like me, waited for his homecoming.

I walked over to his long, sunken-in bed and laid face-down on top of the covers. Curiously, no tears came as I felt the pressure on my chest, over my heart when I breathed in the strong smell of sweat and motor oil that came off of the pillow.

I wanted desperately to cry then, but I couldn't let it out of me until I extinguished that last beam of hope that he was still alive, as morbid as it sounded. I needed to know he was truly dead or I was sure that it would feel as if I was doing something awful to him. I was still only a little kid but as much as I just wanted to be older, and I held onto the slight belief that what I saw that morning was not real.

I knew only one other place he could be if he was, indeed, still alive, since his tow truck was parked outside. He would never wander around without his truck.

He had to be in his convertible or else...

I walked out of his room and began my way down the lonesome but familiar pathway that lead to the clearing. Before that day, though, he had spent less and less time walking that way to his car for a solace in his unsure world, and at times I would come that way by myself to see Horace. I eventually quit when I began hearing the sounds of him screaming and things crashing around. Once, when I got the nerve to peek into the clearing I saw him screaming and howling while clutching his head, and, almost as though the switch in his head that controlled his agony had been thrown, trading it for rage that caused him to begin throwing parts of cars around the clearing. He hadn't a care for his convertible then, hitting either it or the ground with no sense of remorse after he hit it with something.

As I continued down the old pathway, the smell of dirt, oil, and rust assaulted my sense of smell. To anyone except me or Horace, the place that I was walking around would be like a maze with many, many paths, dead ends, and countless small areas that dealt with the various handles of taking vehicles apart. To me, though, it was a simple matter of remembering the directions, and it was especially simple since the many cars stacked had not been replaced or taken apart- none of the cars I always passed were any different than they were a year before.

I was walking through one of the wider forks in the monstrous maze when I felt as though someone or some_thing's _presence had appeared behind me. I felt it first as a feeling that someone was watching me from somewhere on the long, winding pathway behind me.

I twisted around to find that there was nothing there.

I turned back around and began to walk. After a few steps, however, I could nearly taste the overwhelming amount of electricity in the air- a feeling that I recognized from growing up in a broken home all of my life. It was the same feeling that I always got before the dam of calmness broke in my parents, and a fight of a truly massive scale happened. I felt my heart throb into my ribcage, and my walking speed unintentionally increased.

The electricity in the air rose sharply, and I began to run. I didn't understand _why, _not that it mattered. It was the sudden, familiar sense of rage and fear that seemed to implode in my head like a grenade that gave me terror, impressive, almost superhuman speed, and a numbness that seeped into my legs, which were sore form the long walk.

With the world of blurred images speeding past me, I barely registered where I was as I ran as fast as I could through the last pathway that lead to the clearing. It wasn't until I had to stop for a painful gasp of air that I heard the loud, wild roar _behind me_. Even as I whipped around, my lungs feeling crushed and empty, fear beating against my head like the ungodly noise of tribal drums being punched ruthlessly- did I realize that there was nothing behind me.

Even as oxygen-depleted as I was, I felt my lungs release their hard-won supply of air in a loud _huhhhhhh. _

There was nothing physically behind me, but that tension in the air that did not disappear or seem fake...

Instinct made me run to the only shelter I could find with the nameless presence behind me, blocking out the exit. I made for the driver's side- Horace's side- of the car that was forever parked in the middle of the clearing.

I tore the door open, and was prepared to dive in when I felt as though I was surrounded by air as chilling as a bathtub full of ice water. I froze in the bent position that I had taken before I had planned to jump in the car- and I stayed that way as I felt fear and something else that disturbed me beyond my young and shallow depths of understanding halt my every thought and movement.

I felt the hands grab me in my helpless, paralyzed state.

They were unbelievably strong hands that grabbed onto my arms shook me before slamming me into the car. As my body hit the metal of the car, the vocal cords that were once frozen in my throat were released in a loud groan that was more of a release of the air in my lungs. The invisible being pulled me away from the car, then slammed me even harder into the doorway. I screamed as loudly as I could as I felt the pain fly up my back like one long shock wave. Just as quickly as I was slammed into the doorway, whatever it was that was holding onto me with a less than gentle grip let me go.

I felt that it was still standing near the door, so I crawled into the car backwards as fast as I could- until I felt my back hit the passenger's side door. My breath came out in hard, pounding gasps, and I fumbled behind me for the door handle. I pulled on the door handle- and it didn't open.

That was when I felt one side of the car rock- making me think of a great beast crawling into the driver's side. My mind reeled as the shaking of the car that was whatever it was getting into the driver's side stopped. It took me a moment to realize that whatever it was had settled itself into the driver's side.

I then, inexplicably, remembered Horace's father- and how he was such a hateful, dark person. I could easily imagine him coming back from the dead after his son died to try to kill me.

_He's going to kill me because because can never not ever get out of here not ever not ever  
_

I could feel the entity coming closer to me, and all I could do was yell. "Please!" I cried, covering my face with my arms. "I loved Horace, so please, please let me go!"

In a _whoosh, _I felt as though whatever it was (Horace's father, I thought right then without a doubt in my mind) had appeared over me, as if whoever it was was bending over from the driver's side to look closely at me. Or prepare to fix those great hands around my throat once more. I felt my heart against my chest, heavy and slow, and time felt as though it _crawled _as I waited for something to happen to me, my arms covering my head.

It came as a nasty shock to me when I heard someone whispering into my ear in a breathy, otherworldly voice. "_Moooolllyyyy."_

I was shocked, not because of the words, but because I recognized that voice beyond a reason of doubt as belonging to someone I always held close to my heart. Horace. I should not have been surprised- he was supposedly a more viscious person than his father was in life. Had I built up a wall so tall that no form of sense could ever pass by it, and had I deluded myself so greatly as to believe that my attacker was Horace's father?

In the same moment that I lowered my arms from their shield-position over my head, I felt the electricity in the air, the presence, and the uneven balance of the car disappear in the same fluid movement. I crawled over to the driver's side, shutting the door as quickly as I could manage. It was simple logic to me- Horace or not, I did not want him back in this car after what I had just experienced. It was only when I sat back in the seat did I realize- or I believed that I knew- what had happened.

And it became as clear to me as if god himself had lowered down a card attached to a string that said that Horace was dead and as always, was violent.

I stared out the windshield in a way that I can now imagine was not much different than the haunted way that Horace did when he was alive. He always did it in a way that almost looked as if the weight of the world was weighing him and his heart down. I can't say that I felt any different than as if the weight of the whole world had suddenly been dropped onto me with the realization of Horace's death- and the assault that I had narrowly survived from his blind rage had only resulted this way because he had recognized me before he killed me.

I loved him, but I had no romantic illusions that he would have spared me if he had not recognized me at the last second.

He would have throttled me to death.

But, unlike him in life when he sat in that driver's seat, I began to cry, I began to scream, and I began to shiver and shake from both fear and sorrow. It was the knowledge that Horace had been capable of murder and was obviously still capable of it coupled with the painfully obvious truth that he was dead. --

I don't know how to end this recollection from when I was far too young to suffer this kind of heartbreak, so I'll end it here with a day that occurred in my eleventh summer. As well as being a summer day, it also served as the worst day of my life that aged me and took away any childlike innocence I might have had for at least a few more years.

Looking at this long, white screen filled with my own words, I'm at a loss as to what to do with this. I think I've written this as a need to exorcise a memory that has marred my recollection of Horace in life for as long as I've lived since that day. If someone other than me is reading this, then I have added this, instead, to the memoirs that I have planned to write as a possibility when my career nears it's end.

I think and re-think and still think some more about the love I have always claimed I had for the ruthless serial killer known to the public as "The Breaker" but to me simply as Horace, and I know as regrettable as it is for me, I still do. With all of my heart.

I'll leave this day I've spent off of work and under the recommendation of my silly woman of a therapist of writing this under that last sentence I typed in the last paragraph.

I will repeat the last sentence I will write below under any circumstances I will face, for I know there is no other for me than that of Horace Mahoney. I love him with all of my heart, and he was the only one who was ever truly there for me. He does not deserve to only be buried with the knowledge of his many sins- I will only say that for all the anger he may or may not have had in him while alive, he obviously had enough pity and kindness in him to spend the last two years of his ill-fated life with a lonely, scared child.

I love him, and I will always love him, even as memories of him are as strong as they were for me as they day in which they occurred. -- _Molly Christoe._


	6. A Little Death

**Chapter 6- A Touch of Death (Heavily Revised)**

**Author's Note:** I have mixed two chapters together... and have created frankenchapter! Bwuhahahahaha!

So, erm, yeah, what was once an eleven chapter story is now ten. And... that's all.

--_Mad Red Queen_

* * *

After Molly was finished typing on the computer, she felt as though part of an enormous weight on her chest had been lifted. She sat back on the hotel bed, feeling her toes curl as she yawned. She began rubbing at her shoulder tiredly, looking over at the clock next to the bed to see what time it was. When she saw it reading 3 am, she felt like she was going to fall asleep then and there. Until she turned back to face her laptop.

She had pulled the page up to the part where she had kissed Horace- it was a bittersweet memory, one that she treasured but also one that was probably brushed off by Horace as a little girl sign of friendship. Reading the paragraph over and over again, all the while envisioning… remembering that moment when she was overcome with her need to be near him and when she had wanted nothing more in the entire world than to kiss him. _The way his almost ridiculously short hair shyly covered his forehead and some of his eyebrows as he turned to look at me. The pale blue eyes, always slightly reddened at the edges. His gaunt cheeks that stood out in the warm sunlight as his swollen-looking lips were curved in a somehow delicate smile. __That body of his would be something that many women her age would attack each other for- the tallness and the muscle mass would be enough to make any hot-blooded woman swoon. Sadly, the flaw he had was a major one- his shoulder connected to his neck, and his chin that was unfortunately distorted. _

_But, for some reason, Molly only felt endearment and warmth inside of her that was the juvenile beginnings of attraction when she looked at him. Looking back, she could see that back before she realized that how she felt could have been tied in some way to the same way that something as beautiful as a work of art was only made more _real,_ more desirable because of an intentional flaw. He was beautiful to her even in his flaws because of how they seemed to amplify his tall, magnificently fit body. _

_In her mind, her eyes again traveled back up to his lips. To her, they were, by far, one of the most of his most desirable attributes because of the way they always looked swollen and soft. They were his most definitely feminine attribute if a hard, rugged man like Horace had one. She had never seen lips like his on a man before- they pulled her attention to them, especially in her mind's eye with the warm smile on them and the slight shine on his lower lip that looked as if it had been borrowed from the warm sun after he had licked his lips._

_She leaned over before even she knew… realized… that she was taking her long romantic fantasy and turning it into a reality. Her lips pressed against his, and from the first touch she felt an amazing electroshock course through her body as if she had just bitten into a live wire instead of kissing someone. But it was a good, very, very enjoyable shock that wakened up every lobe of her brain and made her feel completely innocent and wholly romantic emotions bursting inside of her._

_That was the exact moment when she knew she really was his and she realized that she was with the only person she would ever feel comfortable with. Her detached way of seeing others never applied to him, after all. _

_She was introduced to the person she would want to spend the rest of her life with at a very young age, and…_

And to say it had effected the person she had since become was an understatement. Every man she had since then dated she had known right from the start would never inspire a deep feeling of love in her.

She laid forward, staring at the screen that tore oh so badly at her heart- and saved it before turning the computer off.

She put the laptop on the nightstand and pulled the cheap, musty blanket over her head. Closing her eyes, she thought of nothing but blankness. An odd thing for her to experience when her mind was as preoccupied as it had been. She began to fall asleep.

* * *

_Molly_ _walked a few feet_ until she realized that the ground she had looked down on and the area in front of her was covered in a dense fog. She wasn't able to see the length of an arm in front of her.

"Where am I?" Molly asked, and was unable to stop her voice from echoing in an odd, unnatural way. That was when it occurred to her, somewhere in the oddity of the world she was submerged in. She was dreaming.

As things always went for people who fell asleep, her mind had trouble trying to process that information to her sleeping self. As her mind tried its hardest to make her realize that none of what she saw and felt was real, a voice coming from behind her nearly made her jump in the air.

"The future plot of Joseph S. Mahoney's Junkyard."

Molly whipped around.

The owner of the voice was a man in a black suit with a red undershirt. He wore small-lensed glasses, and a long stream of blood poured from the crown of his head.

"The future plot.." she trailed off, appraising the odd man with half a sense of wonder and half a feeling of uneasiness. "...who are you?"

The man chuckled a little. "I'm here to just help you and, maybe, another person along the way. That's all you'll need to know about me."

He took a step back. As his foot fell, Molly heard splashing- as if he had stepped in a deep puddle. The man looked back at her, and smiled. "How about we lift this fog up?" He said, his right hand rising in the air. He closed his eyes, tightened his hand into a fist, and slowly relaxed his fist back into an open hand. As he slowly un-tightened his hand, a light _swooshing _sound surrounded them on all sides. It was as if they were in the center of a small cyclone, but no wind whipped at her. Molly looked around and realized that the fog was lifting. In moments, she was able to see where she was.

The ground beneath her feet was completely covered with richly-colored, dark grass. A few flowers (or weeds, in some cases) popped out of the coverlet of wavy green grass. On every side she was surrounded by a valley of green with no road, fence, or building in sight. A hill curved up gently a ways from her left side. The most surprising thing, however, was the shining pond of blue water that the man from before stood on the edge of. Molly was more than certain he was standing in some pretty deep mud because of how the surrounding area around the pond looked from her vantage point.

At first, she was sure that she was in a meadow at the edge of a pond somewhere, but as she looked at her surroundings, she remembered what the man had said earlier. _The future plot of Joseph S. Mahoney's junkyard. _But, looking at the bed of green behind her, she had a very hard time believing that this was the future spot that would become Horace's prison and Mr. Mahoney's life and death.

"I'm sorry- did you say that this was the plot of the Mahoney junkyard?"

The man continued to smile at her as he walked closer to Molly. As he walked out of an, indeed, muddy spot on the bank of the pond, Molly noticed that his black (probably leather) shoes were completely squeaky clean. When he did step completely out of the mud, his feet did not make any squishing noises that would normally accompany stepping out of mud.

"Yes, this is where Joseph chose to build his junkyard- the old bastard." he chuckled bitterly. "He filled in the pond you see- behind me-" he gesticulated at the water behind him. "surrounded this entire area with a pretty hideous high fence, and moved in things that made all of the grass and flowers disappear." The man shook his head slowly and slid his hands into the pockets of his suit. "He's always been good at smashing the happiness and beauty out of everything he has."

Molly shook her head impatiently. "What in the hell does all of this have to do with me?"

The man looked at her with a cocked, quizzical look on his face. "What does everything in this place have to do with you?"

"Horace?" Molly felt a slight flutter in her heart with each beat.

"Yes. I _was _getting to what all of this has to do with you, but I'll just have to get right to that, I, uh, guess." As he spoke, he began to walk around, a nervous look on his face.

_What's WITH this guy?_ Molly was left wondering.

"As few people know, Horace was a good person- an alright-enough guy, I mean- but what became of this place, and what his father taught him eventually pervaded him. Horace's heart was filled in with mistrust and hurt after nearly two decades of living in the kind of toxicness that filled this place after Joseph had his way with it." He stopped in front of her, now with his hands out of his pocket as he made hand movements every time he talked. His fidgeting had also stopped. "Well, I know, I should be the last person to say that he's a gentle guy… but… after a few snatches of his memories that I caught when he… well, when he killed me, I saw you, and I knew that if I helped you, maybe, get some closure, and, erm, uh, maybe helped Horace, then I might be able to begin finding it in better with the big man upstairs after what I've done." he looked up and into Molly's eyes for a long, long time before he abruptly spoke and broke eye contact with her by blinking and rubbing compulsively at his eyes. "Oh, oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself- I'm Dennis Rafkin, or you might rather say I'm the _late _Dennis Rafkin."

He grinned a little, still rubbing at his reddened eyes. Molly found it hard to shake off how odd the moment was, but she held out her hand after a moment's consideration.

"I'm Molly Christoe."

He looked down at her hand and began to hold his own out before he drew it back quickly, rubbing the back of his head and laughing nervously. "Yeah, umm, you know what? I may be dead, but I'm _still _not ready to see if that'll work without the… well, without all of the _screaming _terrors like when I was-." He stopped, looking at Molly as she looked back at him with the same look on her face that someone might save for a psychopath.

"Hey, don't look at me like that- I'm not crazy." he said defensively.

It was then that something struck Molly, something that he had said earlier. "_You're _dead?"

Dennis gave her a look that seemed like a fair comeback for her earlier expression of disbelief. It seemed to say _are you a moron? _"What have I been telling you from the beginning? Yes, I AM a wandering spirit…a, a, a, revenant, a, um, spiritual entity, a, a, a-." Molly cut him off.

"A _ghost__?"_

Dennis nodded. "Thank you for that FINAL realization, it was a simplistic way to say what I am, but at least it got across to you." Dennis began to fidget again, rubbing his nose, digging in his pockets until he seemed to find the words he wanted to say. "Look, I brought you here to ask you to consider going back to the junkyard just _one last time_, and you won't have to do anything, or, or, or even expect anything out of it. I would just appreciate it if you visited it one last time before you go along your merry little way, alright?" He stopped his wild movements with his hands, and looked back at her expectantly. When he did not seem to be wholly encouraged with her expression, he began talking again. His nervousness never seemed to fade totally.

"I, uh, guess that what I've been trying to say, by bringing you here, to, uh, this spot was that you, uh, should consider at least going back to, to, uh, Horace's home. I mean, even if he is dead- well, okay, he is, and it's stupid to presume otherwise- he deserves more than his fa- his dad ruined for him." He stared at Molly, everything in the look he gave her begging her to understand him and to help him. It felt more than uncomfortable

"So, what do you say?" he finally said in a much lower voice. "Don't you want to meet your soul mate again?" and, before Molly could begin to process all of it properly, "Or at least for me. I if do this," he clenched his hands into fists, and stepped from one foot to another in a movement that was either out of excitement or a need to use a powder room. "and I do it right, I just know that I can have a chance at having what I've done be forgiven."

Molly opened her mouth, and, despite having heard his desperate pleas, she wanted to tell him about all of the pain she had endured for the past years because of how she had missed Horace. It would not be a small thing for her to go back to the junkyard right then and there.

"Why would I have to go back there?" Molly said in a low, soft voice.

"What I believe- and what I've heard in the places that I can get to- _up there-_ is that Horace is drawn to you more than he would be for anybody else. With the exception of his father, maybe. He needs to be snapped out of the small dimensional pocket that he has lived in- no, resided in- since his death."

Molly gave the supposedly dead man a blank look. "In other words, he's a ghost, anddd... he needs to be woken up?"

"It's just a working hypothesis.." Dennis seemed to say defensively. "but I think that we can finally tap into Horace's consciousness and have him get ahold of himself. I might have considered using his father for this, but I want him to realize his humanity, not become what he was in life. You symbolize his humanity, which we need him to reconnect with to finish the job we have been trying to complete for the past ten years."

"Job?" Molly's mind could only reel with the implications of what Dennis meant by "job".

"We need him to reach out to a few ghosts that have been touched by what he was. He needs to stop them before they go berzerk and murder many more innocent people. He needs to stop his fellow ghots that have been tainted by the power of Black Zodiac magic."

Molly opened her mouth, but before she could ask the obvious question, Dennis seemed immediatally ready to correct himself. "Forget I mentioned all of that babbling about the Black Zodiac. That part of our thorny problem is only Horace's concern. Well... that is, if Horace actually comes into contact with you. Again, this is only a hypothesis- but one that I have been working on for almost the past decade. I think that you could be a catalyst for him reconstructing himself once again. I will not lie..." he paced around, his brow furrowing behind his eye glasses. "right now he is somewhere beyond sane understanding. But then again, from what I know, he was close to that after his father's death. After he died, though, he did turn completely batshit crazy. What was done to him and those other spirits, though..."

The hair on the back of Molly's neck rose on end. "He... what was done to Horace after he died?"

A dark look passed over Dennis' face. After years of seeing both the innocent and the guilty, Molly knew when she spotted a person wracked with guilt.

"I... I had job in which I... I helped in subjecting the most dangerous and tortured spirits in America to testing with spells related to the Black Zodiac. Some of these spirits- around thirteen of them- are supposed to be special. These thirteen were supposed to fit a very specific criteria- we... me and my boss, Cyrus, went through three sets of ghosts- that's around... god... twenty four... ghosts that I... I tormented... before we got just the right combination right." there were tears in Dennis' eyes then. They rolled past his glasses, over his cheeks. "We got it so wrong the first time... we... we couldn't make what few ghosts we could catch the first time react how they should. Because some didin't even fit the criteria, when they met with the aggressive spells we had recorded and some put on the glass walls of their cells they... they seemed to grow fainter with every moment that they were in contact with the ancient words. They seemed to die."

Molly spoke then as Dennis looked down at his feet, a haunted look to his features. "What do you mean that they seemed to die? Ghosts... they can't die, can they?"

Dennis swallowed and looked up. "I've looked for them nearly every moment that I could. Above, below, in the middle of it all... they seem to have... disappeared. That is supposed to never happen. I... I killed the souls of tormented spirits. There is no place in heaven for these spirits. They don't even wander the Earth..."

"What about Horace?!" Molly said, hoarsely.

"Uh..." Dennis seemed to choke back another sob. "I, uh, well... since he fit the criteria and was meant to become a part of the Black Zodiac, he did not perish like some did. Those bound to the spells did not actually fade away in the least. It intensified the insanity they suffered after their deaths. I turned them into creatures- demons."

"Horace... I've heard stories of him killing people, even after his death. But from what I've heard, they've dropped off in the past few years."

"Yeah... that's what I've heard, too. But there's no way for anything or anybody to truly tell what he's up to when he's like this. We don't know what's happened to him since he's left the glass house. If the touch of the Black Zodiac did anything to the spirits involved in it, it seemed to make them crazed and unable to be touched by any sort of preseance- good or evil."

"So what you're saying to me is that-"

"We have no way of knowing what any of them are up to. What I do know is that there are innocents being sent to the after life with tales of otherworldy beings attacking and in many cases, killing them. Knowing these ghosts M.O's has left me with a pretty clear picture which is that these ghosts have far from dropped off like the ones before them. I believe that they are now operating outside of the constraints which the respresentatives from either heaven or hell can corral them- and have upped the death tally from before they were touched by the Zodiac spells. I believe that they have, for a lack of appropriate terms, gone berzerk."

"If you don't mind me saying..." Molly said, her mind trying its hardest to understand the flux of information it received. "why am I and Horace so important, compared to these other spirits buddies of his?"

"First of all, as far as I know it, none of these ghosts are capable of buddying up with anything, let alone each other. And two, Horace is the only one of the twelve who are frenzied to have withheld from murdering a person who wandered into his territory. You are the only one to have come into contact with a spirit and to have gotten away, during which time the ghost could have chosen to completely kill you. " Dennis looked at her, his face tear and blood-stained, his gaze the most sobering thing which Molly could have ever come into contact with. "You two have a bond which, if he is snapped even for a moment into reality by you, he may just be able to be talked to by a repsresentative of whoever is in charge of his end of the mess, and the both of you may just be able to see him like he was when he was alive again."

Molly felt very much as though she were about to fall down in shock. She supposed, soemwhere in the back of her mind, that this was what it must feel like for those people who learned that they had just won the lottery. She had to sit down on the grass beneath her, as her legs shook too much for her to get a proper balance on them.

"Let me understand this..." she said, licking at her suddenlty very dry lips. "all I would have to do to make this hapen is to just... Just go back to see him, and he'll turn back into what he once was?"

Molly took in deep breaths, focusing on the idea of seeing, touching Horace again. Warmth, love, all rekindled. "Dennis? All I have to do is just see him again?"

A pause, the Dennis spoke again. "Maybe. There was something special in how he stopped himself. Maybe there was even something special about the way you two felt when he was alive."

As she raised her head to look at the bloodied, tear-stained man, she was surprised when she realized that he was no longer there. As a matter of fact, she began to feel a slight spinning sensation in her head and she realized that she was no longer there herself. Molly closed her eyes, opening them only to understand that she was awake, in the fleabag hotel just out of the limits of the her home city of Plantain, and Dennis Rafkin, if he was ever real, was gone.


	7. The Worst Vacation Ever

**Chapter 7- The Worst Vacation Ever  
**

**Author's Note: **It's been awhile- and this was supposed to be on the website last friday, but whatever. Apparently, this website hates me, because every other weekend the thing that lets me submit chapters exponentially f/&#s up- and it's usually for the whole website. But this past weekend's JUST been me. And I'm pissed.

Anyway, we're just a few chapter from the ending, I'm sorry to say. I've spent most of the weekends improving this and the story based of of The Hills Have Eyes for the weekend. I hope you enjoy this last chapter.

* * *

"Molly, am I hearing what I think I am from you?!" Nick Tallahoun's voice shouted, making Molly wince and pull the cell phone from her ear.

"I have to do this- it's personal reasons." she said, bringing the phone in close to her mouth, but inching it away from her ear.

"This could be the kiss of death at a moment like now! The goddamn press will have a field day-" A cracked, old man's voice from behind Molly made her pull the phone down to her hip, silencing Nick's voice for once.

"That'll be twenty-three and fifty cents all together, miss." He was holding the gas pump, and staring at her with an odd look as he heard the muffled yelling from the cell phone planted on her right hip. She gave him an almost apologetic smile and dug around in her purse with her extra hand. "Damn, where is it?!" she hissed under her breath. Sighing angrily, she turned to her car and sat her cell phone face-up on the hood of her car. She dug through her purse as the voice from the cell phone screamed loudly enough to shake the phone and for the gas attendant to hear it.

"Molly! _Molly_! Do you hear me? Are you there?"

Molly muttered absentmindedly to herself, as she usually did when she was trying to get lost in her head. She had begun pulling out random things like lipstick tubes and a business card for Missy Treble's Sewing Barn. She had not visited the specialty shop since buying the gift for the man who happened to be screaming at her through her cell phone for his wedding- nine months ago. "Ahhh-ha!" she yelled out when she finally found the small, floral-patterned pocket book. She turned back to the attendant with money in her hand. She handed it to him. "Here, keep the change."

The old man looked down at the money in his hand incredulously. "Wow, thanks, miss!"

Molly didn't pay attention, just walking back to the hood of her car and began to toss all of her loose, random objects back into her purse with the same promise she always made to herself to _clean the goddamn thing out. _She grabbed her cell phone last, and heard the sound of Nick yelling her name before snapping back at him.

"I really have to go- I don't want to drive and talk to you at the same time. When I reach the state line I'll call you."

Nick's voice seemed to shake with worry as he tried to speak. "Molly, Molly, consider what you are-"

Molly clicked her phone off. She also shut it off- she was going to call Nick after she drove into her old home- if you could call a place infested with bad memories like her old home town a home.

She got into her car and was sure to wave at the now spry and happy gas attendant who stood next the gas pump he had used to pump her gas.

She was now in Jennings- a small hamlet near the Wisconsin state line, and it was approximately three in the afternoon. She had driven for almost eight full hours since she awakened from the too-vivid-to-not-be-real dream she had experienced the night before. For the first ten minutes after she had woken up in the crappy hotel room, she had decided to stick to the plan she, her very intelligent therapist, and her very renown mentor, Nick Tallahoun had decided on- and anyone who ruined a plan like the one laid out for her that was made to help her relax before the media storm of her first nationally known case began was either psychotic and in need of several anti-depressants, or had a life long desire to fail.

Still, Molly could not help but recall the man who had pulled her out of the bitter pit she had been living in as she made yet another turn on a bumpy dirt road.

It was a sure thing that Nick had not pulled out any stops in rescuing her after he had met her and had all but completely paid for her schooling- he had been the one who had taught her that anyone involved in a case as big as her possible one was going to have to expect to be the target of unfair attempts at character assassination. And, yes, being the defendant's attorney and being labeled a sympathizer to a serial killer like "The Breaker" was not a very good thing to mix.

But somehow, after what had happened the night before, she felt as though it was all worth to put on the line- if only to see the only person she ever lived for and still only lived for again.

Her love for Horace had not dissipated over the years- but it had hidden itself in not so convenient areas of her inner mind, like late at night, when she could feel desire and sadness in her heart, and an emptiness somewhere in her legs that begged to be filled.

Unfortunately, since she had graduated from law school a year ago (and effectively became one of the youngest lawyers allowed to become an attorney in modern history, thanks, of course, to her mentor), she had new and terribly pressing responsibilities- mainly, to uphold the respect of the same man who had become the closest thing to father to her. She had two organs in her body that were always at war with each other- a heart that wanted to mourn the death of its partner until the end of time and a brain that always wanted to be forever troubled with the problems of people in similar positions like Horace's.

What she was following then was the one thing that she had been forced to deny. And she was not going to betray her last chance.


	8. Worse Thoughts

**Chapter 9- Worse Thoughts- Revised**

Molly drove for a bit before she could hear the ghost of Nick's unwanted voice echoing through her head. _The press will have a goddamn field day if you get chosen for the Branson case._

Her mind invariably went back to the not-so-comforting mental images of a tabloid newspaper cover with a woman in a long jacket walking through the gates of the junkyard with the caption; "_Neurotic Defense Attorney Takes Comfort in The Home Of a Dead Serial Killer!" _

Underneath that loud, eye-catching caption (in her head) she could imagine the summary running along the line of: "Molly Christoe (Defense Attorney to Ken Branson in the notorious murder trial) was seen wandering aimlessly through the home of the now-deceased serial killer Horace "Breaker" Mahoney just weeks before the case went to trial!""

"Hilarious. Just hilarious."

After a few minutes of shaking that had nothing to do with the dirt road she was on, she began to dig in her purse on the seat next to hers, looking for a pack of gum that she knew was in there somewhere. She was always in the habit of munching as much gum as she could when she was stressed, worried, or just plain bored.

After years of chewing gum as if she were addicted to the mint taste, she just took the packs of gum in her purse for granted. During some days (especially the days in which she was on a minor court case, like D. or when she was being rushed through things, as usual, when Nick wanted to teach her just _one more thing_, which usually lead to at least an hour of demonstrations or being ordered to read from some of his collection of old law books), she could go through packs and packs of gum.

As she thought about her insane situation, she suddenly wanted to shove another stick of gum into her mouth, and chew it until it made her jaws creak from over-use. She soon found her shaky right hand digging feverishly through her purse, pulling a stick of gum out, unwrapping it, and thrusting it into her mouth. She chomped onto it, softening it and melding it with her older piece while a shudder of disgust going through her for no particular reason.

* * *

After at least an hour or two of driving through boring countryside, she felt the need to pull over somewhere- _anywhere- _to use the bathroom. Luckily, she saw the familiar sign of a 7-11 just before she was planning to make an emergency stop to have temporary use of the ditch next to the road. Or a tree. She gratefully pulled in, taking note of the fact that there were only two other cars there. Taking a wild guess, Molly believed that one of the two belonged to whoever was unfortunate enough to work out in this deserted country road-side gas station.

Walking in, she was almost immediately greeted by the small voice of a teen girl who sat behind the counter. Molly didn't take much notice of her, or the teen boy who was browsing the fine selection of dried, salty meat that the gas station had to offer off in the shelves.

Molly shut the unisex restroom's door behind her and relieved herself quickly before she began the tedious period of scrubbing her hands raw in an extreme form of hand washing because of her innate fear of becoming sick. After she felt happy with having rubbed her hands near raw, she turned the old metal sink's water off and walked over to the dryer to press the big button and hold her hands patiently under the hot air that was blown out of it.

After she was happy with the level of dryness, she turned to leave. As she turned, her eyes caught on her own reflection above the old sink.

A big, yellow-stained oval mirror hung above the sink, giving Molly a somewhat unwanted look at her worn, prematurely aged face. She might have turned and walked out right then, if not for the thought that skittered in her head as she looked over her own features. _If Horace ever _could _see me again… could he ever recognize me?_

As she looked at the reflection in the mirror, it hit her that she looked completely different than that girl Horace had known a decade ago.

Her short shock of bright blonde hair had long been dyed a more conservative pure black since her middle school days. Her reasoning was that she wanted to be taken seriously- and as much as she was angry that she had no choice other than to almost completely change her physical appearance to do it, she wanted to be taken seriously more than she wanted to be seen as a weak woman. Her black hair came to her shoulders- and as she looked at the reflection in the mirror, she was a little disgusted to realize that her roots were beginning to show through the black locks on top of her head.

She looked at the eyes looking back in the mirror at her then. Her previously green eyes were another thing than she had purposely changed, which were now a dark brown color, thanks to the wonder of color contacts.

As she looked at the reflection of her face, it was also suddenly apparent that she had been up for quite a long series of sleepless night by the dark half-circles and the slight bags under her eyes that made her look not unlike a thirty-year old smoker.

Her attention was, oddly, drawn to her cheeks. She noticed that they had puffed a bit out from where they had been bony when she was a child, and Molly found that she didn't much like the drastic change. Being overweight was something she did not like whatsoever.

Looking at herself, she was dismayed to realize that Horace would never recognize her, looking like how she did. If she was planning to go through with this, (and if he was actually STILL in the junkyard to some extent or another), she might actually be putting herself in danger if she actually met him.

She reached up to touch her cheek, then an unsightly dark bag under her left eye when she heard the sound of the door swinging open, and hitting the wall with an audible _whack!_ Molly yelped, wheeling around to face the door.

She recognized the face that stuck into the restroom as the face of the teen boy she had noticed earlier. He looked in the room for one second before he seemed to realize that there was a woman in the restroom.

He yelped and stammered wordlessly, turning away to face the door and covering the side of his head facing her direction with his hand.

"I-I-I'm sorry, the door was unlocked, and I must not have even seen you come in here…" He stammered on for a few more seconds before Molly watched as his face glow red.

Despite how freaked out and near snapping emotionally she was, she had to fight to not smile at the show of immense modesty the teenager was showing. "It's alright- I was on my way out, anyway." Molly walked to him, and watched him as he lowered his hand, and stepped aside to let her out of the room. Molly couldn't help but notice the way he kept his eyes averted until she was completely out of the room before he rushed in and shut the door. Molly heard the loud, tell-tale sound of the lock scraping as he secured the door from what she could guess to be from any intruders. Meaning her.

Molly took a quick look at the small girl minding the counter, who looked back at her with a hint of interest. Molly made her way out of the store, feeling relieved when she could no longer feel the weight of any eyes on her.


	9. Entrance to Hell

**Chapter 10- Entrance to Hell: Revised**

Molly rolled up to the decrepit entrance of the junkyard with one possibly self-destructive goal in mind. One thing she wished she could control, however, was the darkening of the light all around her and her car that signaled the end of the day. One of her fears she had experienced when driving was that she was going to have to go through the junkyard in the dark.

She began to nervously thrust her fingers through her hair.

As she looked ahead at the gate, she felt a need go through her like electric- the need to reach in the back, and pull a true relic from her past that lay in the backseat next to her laptop. She made no moves to resist the urge that seized her that time. When she had it in her hands, she found that she couldn't stop herself from tracing oh so familiar lines, marks, and the sign of damage that it had taken when she had accidentally spilled a cup of coffee on it. A swirl of black and white made up the hard cover itself. The pages themselves were a little warped from spilled drinks and age, and they were a bit crackly. It was her notebook.

For some strange reason, she had found the old thing in a box a few weeks ago, and, since then, she had been reading from it whenever she had any form of free time.

Every page had at least a few markings or words in them. Alot of it was actually doodles, which she was more apt to do than her own form of writing. She flipped the cover back and looked at the first page. She had written in the first couple of pages before she had met Horace, if she had remembered correctly. Those pages were a childish blur of angry scribbles or widely-spaced words written in heavy, thick pencil lines.

The pages she could keenly remember actually _writing_ in was only after she had met Horace. After four more pages, she came to a dead stop at the sight of a lightly drawn pencil sketch that she had done more than a decade ago, a few weeks before the subject himself died.

The sketch was of a tall man who wore a long white dress shirt and dark pants. He was turned slightly, his legs facing one way and his body above his hips turned toward the viewer. His short, scruffy hair was cut in its usual way: long enough to be considered unfashionable by most men's standards, and short enough to make his face very much bared to others. Some of the longer stripes of his hair came to cover a bit of his upper face, and graze the tips of his high, bony cheeks.

A slight, gentle smirk was on his face. It was a look Molly knew all too well, and one that she very much doubted as one that was seen by many other people besides her in his lifetime. Maybe it held true in his afterlife as well. She stared at his face a moment longer, and felt an unexpected twist in her heart. She only felt the feeling in her for a moment before she felt a spot of wetness sliding down her cheek and dripping off onto the sketch.

Molly quickly yanked the page away from her, the fear of her damaging the sketch filling her heart. She felt her face gently for a moment, only taking her hand away when she was certain that she wasn't going to cry. She allowed herself to look at the lovingly drawn sketch for a moment longer. The moment she spent looking at it seemed to span a long, long while.

After a long while of flips and quick reading, Molly came across a page with a hastily written poem in pencil written in the middle of the page. She read it quickly, and she felt a feeling of rising strength inside of her as she read it. It was a kind of strength that almost mirrored the power she had felt inside of her when Horace was still alive.

She looked down at it, then back up at the gloomy lot that genuinely scared her.

Well…

Well, if she was _really _going through with this, she might as well bring her notebook with her. _Maybe it'll give me strength,_ she thought, not allowing herself to think on how ridiculous it was to think that just bringing along a notebook she wrote as a little kid would somehow help her.

She flipped the notebook closed and climbed out of the car, making sure to lock the car's doors behind her before she approached the junkyard's entrance.

Molly had been lucky earlier that morning to find out that this area had long been abandoned after the junkyard's last owners (who were later found out to be a group of Satanists) were found, babbling and hiding in the entrance's front gates. It had been later leaked out that they had murdered three of their members when they found the bodies literally torn apart in a sick yet frighteningly accurate mimic of the Breaker murders.

Molly was worried when she had heard about the murders, but the Realtor (an unfortunate man in a suit and a tiny brown mustache that she had met only minutes ago) had assured her that it had been abandoned since they had found the murderers four years ago.

After a moment's hesitation, she reached out to clasp the gate's handle. A cold wind shot in her direction, making her shiver and clutch at her jacket.

She could hear the autumnal leaves stirring up in the slight gust of wind behind her. It was a small crackle that reminded her, strangely, of bells chiming. She reached out once more and pulled the gate open, hurriedly closing it behind her and drawing the jacket closer around her.

The first thing that shocked her was just how much the entrance looked as it had so many years ago. As if no time, not a minute, not an hour, not a week had passed from when Horace had died.

Molly closed her eyes and quickly opened them to try to shake off the illusion of a time before that.

Nevertheless, if she was willing to dwell on the near identical-ness of the entrance from when she had been a child and what she was looking at, she would have been surprised at how much it all felt as though she had snuck back in time to peek in at her life-long crush.

As she walked through the narrow entrance way and into the beginning of the actual junkyard, however, she got a good appreciation for just how changed things were.

Windows on some of the messily placed cars held up on cinder blocks, awaiting bodywork that would never come for them, were smashed open. The broken bodies of various glass bottles were scattered all over the place. She stepped over the ghastly remnants of what she could fantasize about as a wild party she wasn't and never would want to be invited to before she allowed herself to look up from where she was walking. The first thing she saw took her breath away.

A building (the building, you idiot, THE building!) stood at the end of the dirt path before it twisted to the left, leading a wanderer deeper into the junkyard or led them to the other gated pathway that Molly had come through the first night she had met Horace.

It was Horace's home inside of his junkyard that she could not tear her eyes off of. Oh boy, oh boy did that building give her memories, and Molly certainly considered herself lucky that most of them were happy.

She walked to the door and found herself unable to stop herself from trying the door. Would it open? Was it unlocked… _could _it be left unlocked here? The door swung open from her numb fingers, and she swore that she could feel the first wave of sickening disgust whack her even before her eyes could adjust to the darkness of the pitch black room.

It would be more accurate to say that she first felt the first wave of disgust before she even got a lungful of the air_. _The fetid smell that hung in the air smelled at first like some unidentifiable victim of road kill that had been left on the top of a dumpster of rotting garbage. Then, the second wave hit her, which smelled like a public toilet somewhere in a large city that had been left unclean for an ungodly amount of time. And, oh lord, she may not have been religious in any way, shape, or form, but if she had to think of any possible place on earth as hell incarnate, she could do much worse than to begin with this place.

As her eyes adjusted, she became aware that she was in one of those places that always reminded her of those filthy underpasses in a large urban area. The best (and only) way to describe all of the images that hit her at once would be to imagine if every angry group of people on earth were crowded into a room and were told to leave _some_thing- anything- of themselves there before they left.

The ground was completely unseeable through an actual layer of garbage. Potato chip bags, crushed food, Trojan condom packets, cheap plastic cups, syringes, and the same infernal, reoccurring objects that were the broken bottles shattered in pieces all over the floor.

The whole room was pure and horrible chaos.

The walls themselves felt like the worst to Molly. She felt as though she was going to throw up at the depravity of it all, bunched together on the small expanses of walls in the room, like some psychotic bulletin board where everyone was allowed to add part of their inner sickness and darkness to it.

Most of it was written in pen, sharpie, crayon, ect, but to Molly's disbelief, she could see parts where some people had carefully carved their messages into the wall. Those were the ones that seem to assault her as her eyes read their owner's depravity in their words. One message, written in marker or sharpie, simply read, "Fuck or kill all." Another one was simply the same derogatory word carved near a corner of the room, carved in over and over again so that it covered a good amount of space.

Whoever had done that, however, certainly could not hold a candle to the obviously disturbed person who had carved a huge, singularly dominating symbol in the center of the wall on the opposite side where Molly was facing. It was one huge Swastika, one that looked almost bigger than Molly herself, and it looked as though whoever had completed it must have needed a step-ladder to get the job done.

The fact that it must have taken a large amount of skill and willpower still did not do anything at all to change the intense disgust and dread Molly felt when she looked up at it, however.

In fact, its crude, unseeing rage almost mesmerized Molly, almost making her want to walk across the room through the garbage to touch it and confirm that it was _real. _That she wasn't imagining all of this hate and darkness that had been created or vented in this room.

After a moment, though, she managed to unlock her eyes from the adjacent wall. She soon found her eyes catching onto the cot on the right side of the room.

The same cot where the man of her dreams always slept, dreamed, or boredly flipped through magazines was now a charred mess that looked as though someone had purposely set it on fire near the head. The pillow was nowhere to be seen, but blankets (also looking mighty burnt) were lying in a rumpled pile near the foot of the bed. The area above the bed was also not to be spared of the sickness that infected the other walls as well. The first thing she could distinguish was the sure-fire sign of Satanism- an upside-down cross. Drawn and practically purposely over-lapping it was the circle and inner star symbol for witchcraft. Underneath that mess were two words written in in red sharpie; "Hail Satan!".

Molly looked away from that batch of graffiti before she allowed her eyes to wander around the room.

As she allowed herself to look around, she came to the sudden realization that this was no longer her nor Horace's sanctuary. It was hell that was manufactured by whoever had gotten it into their rotting brains to sneak into the abandoned junkyard and commit whatever act of sickness suited them.

And it wasn't just the look or the smell of the place, either. The _atmosphere_ of the place felt like the way the air feels before a particularly bad storm comes, except without the pleasant and optimistic scent of fresh rain. It felt too much as though a cyclone was always about to explode from the electricity (The wrong kind of electricity) in the room, and she suddenly did not want to be in it a moment longer. The carnage that had been one of Horace's few havens was too much to look at.

Molly backed away from the door, and slammed it shut, fighting the urge to not throw up valiantly. She shuddered and turned in the direction of the kennels, which was next to the small house. Looking at it, she once again began to doubt if this place was safe to go through.

After the horribleness of Horace's house, she fearfully wondered what the rest of the junkyard was like.

More syringes? More used condom packets?

Molly looked over at the kennels, not really looking at the closed-off area, suddenly entranced. If there was anywhere in this shell of a place that it once was where Horace had to be if he was, indeed, _there,_ was...

She walked over to the kennel, hesitating at the entrance as years of old habit tried to keep her from entering the threshold of the kennel. Did she seriously think that there was a dog still alive in there? She shook her head, clearing her inhibitions away before she walked into the kennel.

Her eyes scanned the belly of the kennel quickly- telling her things like the fact that _no, _there were no huge dogs in there. _No, _there weren't bums in the kennel. And, _no, _there wasn't a dead body hanging from the top of the fencing by a rope.

Nothing, except for trash that covered the dirt ground and leaves that covered some of the more empty parts of the ground, was there. Not even the old dog dish that Molly now knew was used to feed the dogs-

The dogs…

_Oh, grow up, Molly. You can accept Horace, serial killer and all, but backing off of this? Please, how absolutely hypocritical._

But, she still didn't want to go in there. Nu-uh, not for all of the salt in the seas. Not for all of the sugar canes atop candy mountain.

She turned away and began to walk away from the gate of the kennel.

A sharp noise from behind her made her freeze up and cry out. To her it sounded like a deep, throaty growl that might have come from a feral creature. When she whipped around to face whatever it was that had made the sound, she felt embarrassed when she realized that it was just the gate swinging open and closed on its rusty hinges.

She laughed a weak, nearly sobbing laugh.

Her nerves nevertheless jangled her, and she found herself walking as fast as she could away from the kennels, down the winding pathway of stacked cars. After awhile, she became curiously relieved and not as on-edge when she saw that the stacked piles of junked cars around her were the same as they were when she was a child.

She was heading towards her destination at a good pace. After awhile, she even managed to loosen her death grip on the notebook she held clamped in her hands. That changed when she turned a corner, and heard barking.

She flew backwards and cried out. Her eyes locked on a four-legged black beast (a dog?) that snarled at her, its sharp, crushing jaws exposed to the gums. As she looked at it in blank horror, she watched as streams of drool dribbled from its lips.

If there was such a thing as a god of irony, he must have been laughing when Molly realized, with shock, that this was an exact mirror image of her the few seconds before she met Horace for the first time as a little girl. And her inner alarm system was telling her the exact thing that it had years ago: to just book it in the opposite direction.

As the dog stared at her, growling, and her staring back at it, neither made a move. For Molly, she was deadly frightened that one movement would mean the difference between death by a snarling black monster (one in the same with the ones that scared her so much as a child!) and walking away. They stood in their positions for what literally felt like eternity. Mad, red-rimmed brown eyes locked to widened browns. They danced a dangerous, precarious dance with one dancer's life on the line.

Molly took the time they spent staring at each other to analyze the creature. As she could have easily guessed, it was, indeed, a dog. Except now, she realized that the "black beasts" that she was always deadly afraid of were rottweilers- as this one was.

Grey covered his bright gold-colored muzzle, telling of years spent in this place that were probably not dog-years of running in a grassy backyard, chasing people who threw Frisbees, or laying on couches with its huge head on a frail-looking housewife's lap, having his body absent-mindedly stroked.

The only question she had was what it was doing there. Who would leave a psychotic dog there to patrol as deep as they were in the abandoned junkyard? Molly had to force that thought out of her head.

No, he (if it WAS a he) was probably just the unfortunate offspring of one of Horace's original junk dogs, and had been abandoned.

After awhile, Molly's mind went blank, and she watched as the dog growled at her, unmoving.

What now? Go back?

No.

For some suicidal reason, Molly felt anger burning in her chest. So many years, so many _wasted_ years- and all that stood between her and that goddamn quiet place in the somehow untainted heart of this place was a dog with all of the hairs on his spine bristled up and his huge, jagged teeth completely visible.

Molly lifted her foot forward, and placed it on the ground. The dog snarled louder, but backed up.


	10. I'll Be Gone

**Chapter 10- I'll Be Gone- Revised**

Molly took another step forward.

The dog didn't make more movement backwards, however; it just growled.

"Good boy." Molly whispered.

As Molly took another step forward, she could swear she heard the growling stop. "C'mon, boy…" Molly whispered. She held a hand out to it, palm up and half forming a cup. She walked closer to him slowly, crooning to him. Each movement seemed to move at a crawling pace as slowly, with the speed of a snail in haste, the dog began to cover his teeth with his graying lips. In his eyes, Molly believed that she saw confusion. He licked his lips, and took a cautious step backwards, looking up at her as if he expected her to throw something at him. Molly watched this movement, and couldn't help the pang that pierced her when she realized that this old, tired, worn-down beast was probably so wary of her because of previous treatment he had received in the past.

Images of all of the garbage and horror she had seen earlier came back at her. She wondered how many people he had bitten in his lifetime.

Molly was still frightened of him. So frightened that she felt the need to disappear into herself, and watch herself march forward cautiously towards him. It was like she was watching a movie; the bad kind where you know the girl is going to get killed for being _so_ stupid.

That was taken away from her in a flash, however, and she felt as though she had been thrown back into first person view when she was in touching distance of the dog.

_What now, genius? _Her mind asked, laughing at her. More images flashed in her mind, this time of her not-so understanding mentor having to stand over her grave and brood over how dumb his supposed prodigy had been. In her eye, he was concealing his face with one hand that was pressed to the upper half of his face in embarrassment.

It was strange that out of every fear she had of dying, that that image of Nick was the most painful and trumped all other thoughts about how she was about to be horribly maimed or killed.

That is, until she looked down at the dog, and came to the realization that this creature was of no harm to her. His look of hazy confusion had left his eyes, and were now bare of any sort of rage. As she looked into those eyes, she saw something that saddened her a great deal. His eyes looked weak, hazy, and sad. They were eyes that belonged to a lonely creature that had no companions in the world. What touched her the most was the way that those eyes reminded her of someone else's as well. Horace.

And, she was a little sad to admit it, but the radiating loneliness in them reminded her of her own when she looked in a mirror.

Molly reached a slightly shaking hand out to caress the top of his huge head. "Good boy…".

He didn't respond, he just kept looking up at her, with a look that seemed to ask her to just do whatever it was that she wanted to do with him and get it over with. He just wanted to end it all, and he was sick of fighting. Molly hesitated with her hand over one of his ears, and stroked it gently. A lump appeared in her throat as she looked down at him. Sure, she was relieved that she wasn't going to get attacked by this brute, but…

But what? It wasn't as if his presence here was her fault; those goddamn cops were obviously the stupid jackasses who'd leave a dog to starve to death here. Or the ASPCA here, those ass wipes couldn't even be bothered to check the junkyard out?

Or… Wait, what in the hell was she _doing? _She was just a few minutes from the clearing, and she was thinking about a feral dog?

Molly plucked her hand from his hand, and cleared her throat.

"Have a nice night." she said awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.

The dog gazed up at her, not blinking his sad, dim eyes.

Molly cleared her throat and walked around him.

She had walked a few feet when she heard the sound of footfalls behind her. Or more accurately, four paws hitting the dirt pathway, following her.

Molly turned around and saw the beast look up at her questioningly.

"You are one weird stray, you know that?"

He looked up at her, his head cocking to the side in an inexplicably cute way that reminded Molly of a puppy.

Molly grunted and turned around. As long as he wasn't set on tearing her leg off, she supposed that he could tap-dance around her wearing a top-hat and waving a cane for all she cared.

The dog followed her all the way to the edge of the clearing. It was there, with the clearing in front of her, that Molly stopped walking. The dog walked up next to her before sitting down. Molly realized then that it had finally turned nightfall- the only light was from the faint beams of the dying sun. Molly looked forward, and sucked in her breath.

The convertible that had always graced the center of the clearing stood there, unscathed from whatever degenerates had stumbled through the junkyard. Molly's mind came to the creature who sat with an almost dignified stance next to her. She remembered thinking something about why he was all the way out here when a thought hit her.

Maybe he was supposed to be out here. Like… like he was guarding the clearing from intruders...

Molly looked down at the strange beast in question. He didn't look at her- he simply stared forward in a way the immediately reminded Molly of guardsmen in England. The way he just stared forward with a... proud look on his face?

Molly felt a deep sense of gratitude to him then. If it wasn't for him, this place would probably be in shambles. She reached down to caress the back of his neck, and she was surprised when he made a very dog-like whining sound. But he never unlocked his eyes from the clearing.

Molly stared at the clearing for a second longer before stepping forward.

Was Horace here? Could that explain why the dog was the way it was?

Horace had always had a strange way around his dogs. She knew how strange it was- and how messed up it was, now that she was an adult. But the truth had always been that out of a lack of human friends who were his age, he had turned to treating his dogs like brothers and sisters. More than once she had peeked in on him making faux dog sounds to the beasts when he fed them or rolled with them in the dirt. He was probably the only human capable of standing a chance of three or more of them tackling him and playing with him.

She kept walking with her heart pounding in her ears, deafening her. At any moment, after all, she expected the same assault she had previously suffered in there. It never came.

Molly got to the red convertible and made as if she was about to open the driver's door. She paused before she brought her hand away from the silver handle and to the red side of the stroked it gently and looked at it wonderingly.

It had changed a bit over the years; time had not been fair to the muscle car's fire-red paint job or to the hood of it. But, other than that, it looked as she had left it years ago- and she was possibly the last human to have sat in it.

She transferred her hand back to the handle, gently pulling it open before sitting in it. She sat all the way back in it and looked through the windshield before a shiver shot through her, making her wrap her hands around herself. She didn't have a chance to allow her thoughts to simmer away, or wonder if Horace really _was _there, because she soon heard scratching on the passenger's side door and whimpering.

Molly reached across the passenger's side to open the door. Sure enough, the stray hopped into the car. To Molly's surprise, however, he was now wagging his tail. _Tail_, Molly thought. _Well, he's definitely a stray, then_. She had never seen a pet rottweiler without a chop-job tail before. The dog looked at her for a quick second before turning to look out the window.

"Weird dog." Molly said, not unkindly. She too turned to look out the windshield. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This is it, this is now-or-never, and Molly didn't much want to think about the _never._

Nothing happened, though. Molly wanted to scream.

Was _this _why she put her career on the line even before it took off? Did she actually think that a man in her dreams could tell her a way to meet with a dead man once more?

Molly looked at the dog, then back out the windshield.

No harm in trying.

Molly licked her lips before speaking into the windshield. "Horace, if you're here- come now." Nothing.

She waited another impatient moment before speaking again. "Say _something."_ she said, feeling panic course her body. Nothing.

"H-Horace, please. Please, please be here." she said loudly. And, oh lord, as her mother would have said, pass the tissues, 'cause here's a crier.

Molly felt tears come then, no matter how hard she tried to suppress them. "God_damn _it! I need you, so where _are _you?! Can't you see I can't function without you?! I need you!" she screamed, sobbing and trembling all over.

The phrase that silence is sometimes the cruelest answer seemed to fit, for no answer came for Molly's broken sobs and needy cries. Time stopped being a factor in Molly's life as the dying lights of sundown faded away into darkness and Molly's ability to speak became broken into simple cries of Horace's name. She buried her face into her hands and rocked back and forth.

She needed him- so where was he? Couldn't he see that she needed him? That she still wanted him?

Was he watching her, and gauging whether or not he should give a damn?

Was he even _there?_

After a long while, Molly finally felt as though she couldn't cry anymore. It didn't even _matter _whether he was still there anymore as a deep sense of shame and abandonment spread through her.

She lifted her head, still sniffling a bit. _Now what?_

When the dog reached over to press his head against her, Molly wasn't expecting it. She yelped.

The dog just pressed his head to her side soundlessly. And, to Molly right then, who had never had much of anyone or anything who was supporting to her when she desperately needed it in her whole life, it didn't matter to her that he was just a mangy stray. Molly reached a trembling hand over to his head. She patted him.

"Th-thank you." She said softly, her voice hoarse and cracked from crying and screaming. He never made a sound or movement, he was as still as he always seemed to be. For once, Molly felt an inexplicable sense of gratitude for it. After a moment, Molly gently nudged the dog a bit. He took the hint easily and scooted to his side quickly.

Molly looked at the door handle, and wondered if she should leave. Before she could make a choice, she felt a soft weight on her leg that she had all but completely forgotten about. It was her notebook.

Without even thinking, she picked it up with a loud sniffle. Molly flipped to the first few pages before coming to the sketch she had done of Horace. She felt like tearing it, and stomping on the fucking pieces. She reached to the top of the paper, and paused before she made the motion to tear it. Her eyes went helplessly to the sketched image of Horace dear, dear face. That smiling, sketched face made Molly's heart drop.

No, she couldn't do it- the sketch meant too much to her for her to force herself to shred it.

Her hand shakily traced the features of the sketch; his head, his torso, his long, long legs…

Molly turned the pages quickly, now looking for the poem that she had read before. In a heartbeat, she was facing it. Her first intention was to rip that one up instead, but she found that she couldn't do that, either. She soon found herself reciting the lines she had drawn in messy pencil aloud in a shaky, weepy, hoarse voice.

"My heart, my love," she sniffled and soon found that she needed to wipe at her nose a bit, then her eyes. "I was just a child; and you nurtured me,

I was starving, and you fed me,

I was lonely, and…" Molly sobbed and felt a tear streak down her face, which was odd, since she thought she was all weeped out. "and you gave me friendship.

But, most of all, when I needed it the most, I got you." She sniffled loudly at the end of the sentence, and although she felt a deep sadness in her, she felt like she needed to continue.

"I love you.

When I was scared to fly, you gave me wings.

My darling, I look forward everyday to seeing your big, sweet smile.

I love you.

When I needed and friend and more, you were there to reassure me,

But now, silly thing I am,

For everything you gave me, I still want more." Molly's sobbing became controlled, but her lips still trembled, as her voice did.

"I need more than this, and I know you'll never understand.

I love you.

I love you." Molly felt a sob choke out of her throat at the end, and she made no movements to suppress it. She cried some more, holding the notebook away from her. After a long moment, Molly felt the tears stop. She held the notebook back in front of her. She read the last words at the bottom of the page aloud.

"Molly Christoe." and, under that, "Horace Mahoney, my giant."

She paused, staring at the page one last time.

She felt as though her heart was about to break; and she didn't know if she could handle seeing it ever again without breaking into tears. She ripped it out of the notebook before she could stop herself, and made a movement to rip it up. She stopped before she did, however. She looked at it a moment longer before she decided what she was going to do with it.

She was going to leave it here; on the driver's side seat. To Molly, it made sense to her that she should leave it here. To symbolize her leaving this bad, wrecked part of her life forever.

It was about time that she stopped mourning before her whole life completely left her. At her age, she should already be married and burdened with screaming children. A lump appeared in her throat as she thought of marriage.

She pushed that thought away quickly and yanked the driver's side door open, carrying the loose paper and notebook in one hand. She held the door open and looked inside expectantly.

"Come on." The dog did not hesitate for a second as he jumped out of the car. Molly waited until he was completely out of the car before she lifted the notebook and paper up to look at the paper one last time. One line in particular jumped at her. _For everything you gave me, I still want more._

_That sounds about right, _Molly thought, a hint of anger in her now. _And I'm sick of waiting for something that will never come… _can _never happen. _

This was long over-due, in Molly's humble opinion. Still, no matter how strong her resolve felt, she still hesitated before tossing the paper into the driver's side seat and slamming the door shut. Instead of feeling rejoiced at having freed herself from her love-sickness, she still felt regret and heartbreak rule her emotions.

She was thrown out of her head by a cold, cutting autumn wind that went _whooshing _through the clearing.

It sent her dyed black hair flying in all directions. She turned to face it.

Cold-biting or not, it felt soothing on her hot, swollen, wet face, and she enjoyed every moment of it. Her eyes shut against her will, and she slowly lifted her head up. Somewhere in her head, a part of her whispered a phrase so cliché that Molly suddenly starting laughing. And laughing hard, as if someone had just told a gut-bustingly funny joke.

_Maybe this is the winds of change._

And when Molly was done laughing, when the wind had died back down, Molly found that she hoped along with the voice that this was, indeed, the winds of change. She looked down at the dog who was looking back up at her, and smiled. A weak smile, but hey, it worked.

She then turned to begin her walk back out the maze of cars with the dog trailing her yet again. When she stepped out of the clearing, she began to hum a wordless tune, trying to keep her thoughts away from the sad ones that could come to her at any time, and exponentially mess up the beginnings of optimism that she had.

It wasn't much after what she had just gone through, but it was a start, like the weak smile she still had twitching the sides of her lips.

* * *

_...Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes..._

_...and like a sinner before the gates of heaven I'll come crawling on back to you...  
_

_--A lines from "Bat Out Of Hell" by Meat Loaf_

* * *

_**Roll Da Credits Now, Dammit!**_


End file.
